From Westcoast to Midwest

Winter 80 in Wyoming is terrible.

Even when it's not snowing you can get fooled and end up on snow blowing on road and randomly forming into ice.

 

Parking always worked for me. It is either time wasted parking or time wasted chaining and unchaining going slow and possibly sliding into something or someone or over a cliff or in a ditch.

And the reason "Why couldn't everywhere wasn't like Florida" is that the Twilight Zone has not officially merged with the Outer Limits quite yet, so some things still make at least a little sense.

 

People park and wait it out all the time.

 

U only need chains to get up and over a mountain pass. You arent going to drive with them on all day. You will want to keep it under 30mph and keep your chains tight otherwise they will come apart and can destroy your fenders or whatever is around your wheels..You get good at it, it takes 10 minutes to chain up and roll. You hardly lose anytime for the day, but you also have to drop the go go go mentality. ..meanwhile the guys sitting in the truckstop will still be sitting there as im coming back with my 3rd load for the day. And they would never last 3 days doing the work i used to do if their mentality is to park when the first snowflake falls. I have seen it snow in june and july as well . Some places like western montana it snows almost everyday... There is no reason to sit in a truckstop unless its an ice or wind storm... There is also some places in this country they dont even plow the road to pavement, just maintain the snowpack all year. Its important to develop your driving skills to handle these situations. You will become a better than average driver

 

There is a tipping point on the horizon for chaining.

A bunch of states are leaning toward just shutting down the road as apposed to requiring chains.

And also lessening the thresholds for chains required and road closures.

Can't say that I disagree with the changes based on the poor skills and habits I see from both the car and commercial drivers.

 

When the chain laws go up it's bad enough to park it, especially with the quality of driver out there now, there's a good number of drivers that'll just flat out disregard the law. Their disregard of the law could land you in a very bad accident. I've done both and when your gut tells you to park it you best listen.

If you find yourself constantly being dispatched into every major snowstorm during the winter months that's a sign to find a better company. You can't predict what other drivers on the road will do or how skilled they are. It's best to park it and keep that record clean. 20 years ago you didn't have near the accidents on I80, especially in Wyoming.

 

On your current trip, i'd be more inclined to run 70,44,40,15.