Winter Driving Stories

Good story Bucky. Another verdict and basic rule of thumb about winter driving is to be especially careful of north facing slopes, or any slope that doesn't get as much sunlight. That's were it gets icy. Thanks to higher powers that helped you through that situation.

Not sure if I told this earlier in this thread, but if I did I apologize in advance...

I was driving on a 4 lane highway with a center turning lane getting to a customer. It was well below freezing, but hadn't had precipitation in days and the highway itself was bone dry in the middle of the day. The highway ran east and west, I was headed east and had to make a left turn to a two lane side street that went down below the level of the highway and then made an immediate left turn about 90 feet later.

In order to make the turn I got down into low range and took the turn off the highway at about 10 mph. Oncoming traffic was a ways away but approaching. As my tractor started down the hill I immediately realized I'd violated the rule that ice forms on north facing slopes. That little side street was a sheet of ice that continued right through the 90º left turn just ahead and there was a curb on the far side of the turn.

In a split second I realized if I tried to make the turn, even at slow speed, I was just going to slam my steers sideways into the curb. In that split second I saw the only out was to continue straight into the entrance of a parking lot for an office building that was dead ahead and had dry pavement after a slight rise that caught more sunlight with a south facing slope.

Even light braking down the slope had little effect and I coast/slid down until I got to the dry pavement in the parking lot and then smoothly applied brakes and watched to make sure the trailer didn't jackknife. I remember watching the eyes of the receptionist through the glass wall of the office building getting bigger and bigger and bigger as this big bad semi came right toward her.

I made a smooth, controlled stop with my trailer barely on the parking lot pavement and the nose of the truck so close to the entrance to the building I couldn't see the receptionist anymore. Then I reversed straight back up the hill, checking the highway both ways to make sure nobody was coming that might be coming down the hill and came to a hesitation stop in position to crank the wheel to the left and easily and smoothly make that left turn.