Lets talk about winter driving with doubles

How bout not...........I am looking forward too warm summer nights

 

My first full winter of driving a truck was for FedEx Ground in Southwest Michigan during the 2013-14 season.

Home base was Kalamazoo Michigan. I'd hook to empty doubles and drive to Hammond Indiana (just south of Chicago). On the way I'd swap my lead trailer with a 'loaded' one in Watervliet. In Hammond I'd unhook and relay with a driver from Chicago. I'd take those doubles to Toledo, drop them, and hook to two new loaded trailers and bring them back to Kalamazoo. Round trip is roughly 600 miles, started at 6pm ended at 6am.

That winter broke records for the area. It was akin to the storms they had in the northeast this year, just one after the other. On two or three occasions I was driving in snow the entire time. In February 2014 my nerves were shot and I told my boss if he didn't get me off that run I would have to find something else. Driving down I94 toward Chicago was the absolute worst because I was very light and that corridor has terrible lake effect snow.

I ran a dashcam the entire time and luckily didn't have to use it for much. This was the closest call:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPhpajHrlMQ

Doubles don't really make a huge difference when you're heavy, but if not the wind is a bigger issue. There was one time when I was leaving the location in Watervliet, the onramp to 94 had a somewhat significant incline and it'd been snowing hard right around the freezing mark leaving a layer of ice. I started up the ramp and slowly lost all my traction. My tractor only had one drive axle, combined with the light trailers, my only option was to sit there and wait for a wrecker.

I don't mind driving doubles, but I'm not doing it in an area that gets a lot of snow. Driving a regular trailer in circles during winter is bad enough.