What would YOU do?

ok, thought i missed something.. we might have more experience but you never get comfortable doing it. i don't think we are more experienced than the guys/gals from the northern border states..have a good one.

 

I was coming north through Tennessee years ago. Highway was closing and the highway patrol was putting people off the interstate.

Imagine the surprise when me and the two trucks behind me were waved on to keep going. Roads were supposed to be icy and not friendly at all.

About 6 miles up the road, things started to get not friendly. Within 20 miles, they were downright scary.

We started to climb a hill in like 4th gear. I remember NOT being in high range anyway. Power skids stopped us at that point. It had taken us close to 2 hours to go 25-30 miles.

Turns out if you were from north of Illinois, the HP was allowing us to go figuring we had enough sense to know when to stop.

Most of us only made it that 25-30 miles from where they waved us through. Helped them control things a bit on down south and not have such a huge pile-up.

Only other time it was bad is leaving Chicago and headed south on I55. We left in t-shirts. Within 3 hours it turned to a nightmare and a parking lot on the interstate. Wet, heavy snow.

We left snow FAMILIES behind for the snow plows to clear off. We had local LEO's checking on us on snowmobiles to make sure all of use stranded on the highway were ok.

In 1997, I was called at 11:30 PM and told to report to the guard unit at midnight. The sheriff had some stranded motorist and we were needed to go get them. The first was a trucker that got turned around wrong leaving the truck stop. 5 miles out on a single lane county road. He had the fuel to last him, the sheriff just wanted him out of the truck.

Idiot # 2 was a guy that tried driving 20 miles into town and drove into a 20 foot snow bank across the highway. His wife worked at the hospital in town and wanted to go home. At least he was dressed for the weather.

Idiot #3 was a train crew transport driver. he drove up to Moorhead MN from Chicago because all the local drivers refused to go out in the weather. He was dressed in bare feet and penny loavers. When we got to him, his lips were blue and he was close to passing out from hypothermia. he had lined his fall coat with the local newspaper for warmth. It was -20F and had 45-60 mph winds that night.

So having been through those....

I just park it and wait it out. My life is worth more than that freight.

 

Yep. I refuse to drive in weather like that anymore. I don't care what "tough guys" say.

 

That's BS about canadians being better cold weather drivers..anyone who gets out here in the winter months gets good at what they're doing..unless they have s*** for brains anyway.

When the weather is bad make a desicion..keep going slowly but surely,,or get off the road.

To each his own,I like drive out of bad weather if possible.

 

Tripp, I'll agree with that to a certain degree. We do have more experience dealing with the cold weather than the average american driver. Case in point, I don't know how many times I came across an american driver with frozen brakes or gelled fuel. Not saying it doesn't happen to Canadians but with dealing with it for months straight every winter, some of us know the tricks to deal with it before it happens. Although when I ran Otr I would head south as often as I could there are some that won't or can't run into the states. up here we don't have to deal with summer fuel in the southern states and the winter fuel in the northern states. the whole country switches over about the same time. so are we better winter drivers, probably not. are we better at dealing with winter conditions, probably.

 

I dunno....everything I receive could have waited!

 

I am amazed how the gentleman was able to make that video while driving within those conditions. He makes mention of others driving to fast for conditions, but making movies while operating a motor vehicle is just as dangerous.

As to the question "Park or keep going" as many of you have experienced; there are many occassions where this situation arises that you have no other choice but to keep going. Unfortunately, sometimes there is no where for you to park the truck safely. Ramps are full, truckstops not available or full. This is where a driver must make good judgement calls and keep safety as the top priority and try to control the situation and continually reacess the situation.

 

Marranhick,

USPS, US Military and the various "DOT" agencies are exempt due to not being a "commercial" operation. They don't provide a "goods" they provide a service and the trucks are just a "tool" of that service.

DOT provides drivable roads. USPS does something similar but with mail.

IMPO, it's because they are a government agency and have been given a buy to be expempt by another branch of the government that makes the rules.

 

Thanks for the info MNdriver. I was aware that the military holds to a different set of regulations. I am a retired Marine and did drive a truck among many other things during my career. I was not aware that the USPS fell into the same type of exemptions. Thanks for the clarification, I learn something new each and everyday.

Thanks again. Keep it between the lines and be safe out there!

 

you too.

federal, State, city, county and other local agencies all fall under similar exemptions