Hydroplaning in a truck, how do you deal with it?

That too.

Maybe he was tired. Had a long thousand miles then having to deal with this asleep or something. Who knows.

Some of my stories cannot be told because I don't have accurate memories due to being very tired a time or two.

Im not here to pick on the OP, but I hope that whatever it is gets resolved and we will not ever see the OP really get into trouble or worse hurt someone.

 

Thanks for the words of education, theory & philosophy. But I did not pump the brakes, only release pedal pressure and re-apply the brakes. I probably wanted to feel them lock up. I thought my brakes were malfunctioning, but I tested them later on a different road surface, and not only did I slow down much quicker, but my "sudden deceleration" light came on, on my e-log. I swear I get more grip in snow, and obviously drive a whole lot slower on ice. I was going under the speed limit, and not only will I remember to pay closer attention to surface conditions, but remember what it's like to hydroplane. It was insane how time slowed down, and stopped for a few seconds as I rolled through that intersection. I think sometimes there is someone looking over me or i'm just one lucky person.

 

I was doing 60 in a 65 an coming up on a ripe green light. I was going slower than the flow of traffic. It may have been less than 1000' but when I saw the light turn yellow I was fully confident I could stop. The only reason why I re-applied my brakes is because when I reached full breaking besides the ABS cycling, the "sudden deceleration" light didn't come on. I later found out it was fresh asphalt and the road surface was unstable. I'm most likely going to get some different tires, because I know they're always the #1 safety/performance factor on anything with wheels.

 

You are welcome.

One final quibble. You said in your original post you thought your brakes were failing.

In a big rig that does not compute to me. You have that low air alarm then Mr Pop alarm from your tractor protection valve followed by the ultimate stop right now spring brakes in your entire 18 wheeler.

You also have Mr Fade, Mr Smoke, Mr Fire and Mr Leak Bigly to tell you if necessary if you REALLY have issues.

Im not here to pick on you, Im just trying to address or help a little bit to ease any outstanding little things before they become really big things.

Your truck is probably 70 feet long. 1000 feet is about 15 of them in a row. Or maybe 20 seconds plus to get there at 60 mph. If you thought you might need 1000 feet to stop, you are on ice at that point. Rigs can stop pretty quick relatively for them.

I appreciate you writing back, I understand where you are now. Hopefully. Not sure how the others will address it but we will resolve this.

 

Fresh asphalt releases oils.

That's why it felt different to you.

 

The dry desert sates are bad for being slick during the first minutes of rain. And Texas,"the bleeding tar state", that stuff won't wash away.

 

Fleets like to run tires till ya can see the air in them and run what's cheapest .
My drives go away at 7/ 32s and the steers at around 50% , I run high quality tires and get good trade in value on them avoiding problems on the road and don't have traction issues ...my go to tires are Michelins on the steer and yokahamas on the drives all replaced at once .

 

Just a follow up, I was traveling on I 696 to get back home. Well some clown passed me in a chevy cruz, he lost control doing 90 (he admitted to that when I checked on him), but it was the oddest thing, he lost control like he was on ice going sideways across all the lanes before hitting the wall. but it looked like he left water marks on the road and it seemed to dissipate while we were waiting for the cops to show up. when he crossed my path, he looked at me as in amazement this was happening.

So you were ignoring one of the rules of driving, on rural roads, slow down for intersections with lights.

 

Those new abs brakes can be a bear when you hit them in a hurry because somebody just cut in front of you and slammed the brakes on in the rain. It seems like they take a minute to start applying and then it starts vibrating like crazy doing the pumping all by itself taking twice as long to stop as when we did the pumping ourselves, that is all done to keep us safe they say. About all you can do is have a good dash cam and increase following distance almost 2x what you do on dry roads. Or get a truck that lets you be the driver.

 

I had ABS on four tractor trailers, Ronnie Dowdy was the first to have full trailer and tractor (53 great danes reefer with for me FLD 120's and then KW T2000's later) I have to tell you there was no real difference in the "Drawtime" such as pulling a colt from the holster to open fire the shot clock comes out just so. Most of the time the ABS rigs had been the difference between the Boss hearing about my royal screw up or not hearing anything at all. What the Boss does not know in his or her bliss at night does not bother anyone.

One tractor I think the ABS technology either evolved or improved was with the 2001 Century Freightliner (I realized many of you will think little of it, but in terms of what we had done with it that year, it's a good truck, just wears out too easily) the ABS was used a number of times, particularly in the rain. I have told the story of the Cross Bronx southbound insurance scammer with 4 people in his little VW Rabbit getting into front of me a few times. The ABS was all over it.

There is... however a certain time loss in trucking.

See something, construct it in your mind followed by WTF and OMG etc. .3 seconds. (The future is now, we are just only now learning about it...)

Making a decision to physically move your foot to stop this Dutchman now before you kill all them chilluns. (Children( That will be a range but for clarity let's try .5 of a second. Some people will proceed into the smash unable or out of time to decide.

Now that the truck knows it's time to stop, air is one of the fastest outside of Electric means of passing the word to all 10 wheels. (18 wheelers, 18 tires on rims not wheels over drum brakes) It will take a moment to generate the full breaking horsepower at the drum. Call it .4 of a second.

Ok we wasted about 1.2 seconds. Which happens to be really close to where I am at at my age in drawing from under concealment against a bad guy after I have detected and decided to take him out. I usually do better than that. But this is about truck stopping not me.

The stopping part should only take around 355 feet loaded (Down to 235 now I think) or 6 seconds give or take two.

I suspect DOT is beginning to enjoy their more reality altering rules and regulations more ofthen than they really should. Just because they dictate that a truck stops in 50 feet does not mean make it so.

Anyway, it's been 8 seconds. You hit him yet? Or no.