With the snowy season upon us and deadly snowstorms already halting travel across the great plains. There is only more bad weather in your future. Fierce winds and snow has caused fatal road accidents and smashed highways in five states early Tuesday. With forecasters warning that pre-holiday travel would be difficult if not impossible across the region; us with truck driving jobs in this busy time of the year have to be much more careful. We know that we are not afforded the luxury of stopping when we have a load to deliver.
Hotels and motels are filling up fast along major roadways from eastern New Mexico to Kansas, and one hundred plus rescue calls came in from motorists in the Texas Panhandle as blizzard conditions forced closed part of Interstate 40, a major east-west route, Monday night. If you are out the driving your truck in these tough times we want to wish your safe travels as we know they are be long and stressful times.
10 inches of snow has fallen in western Kansas before dawn Tuesday and several more inches along with strong wind gusts were expected, National Weather Service meteorologist Marc Russell said."We're talking about whiteout conditions," he said.
"We've been traveling about 20 miles per hour all the way from Denver," Haltli said Tuesday. She said they had passed up to 15 wrecks including rollovers, upside down cars and jackknifed trucks as they drove through Colorado. "I don't think we'll be able to make the funeral, but we'll keep going," she said. Colorado Highway Patrol trooper Nate Reid said the freezing rain and fog came in so fast on Monday that it caught a lot of drivers unaware. "I can't even count how many rollovers we had," Reid said.
With snow packed and icy conditions forcing closures of roadways across western and southwestern Kansas, including a western section of the I-70, the main thoroughfare that traverses the state. We wanted to give out a quick list of truck driving and driving tips in winter conditions.
First, all of the four-wheelers traveling in the snow; please slow down, decrease your speed and don’t forget that you cannot stop so you have to leave yourself plenty of room. Normally, you maybe able to tailgate and get away with it, but you should allow at least three times more space than you usual have between you and the car in front of you. Braking gently should allow you to avoid skidding, if you start to feel your wheel lock up then take your foot off of the brake right away. You should feel things unlock and straighten back out. Make sure you turn your lights on to increase your visibility to other motorists. Using lower gears will automatically help you driver slower and decelerate slower without having to use the brake and risk locking up and skidding, especially on hills.
Next, here are some tips incase you get stuck in the snow. First, whatever you do, do not spin your wheels. Spinning your wheels only digs you deeper and in most cases can create a sheet of ice to form around your tires making it much more difficult to get out. Try turning your wheels side to side a few times to create room for your tires to get some momentum. When making your first couple of attempts to get out make sure you feather the gas lightly to gage if you have any traction. If you are luck enough to have a shovel around dig out some of the snow around your tires that propel your car so you can gain some movement in one direction or the other. A lot of times if you get moving you can use your momentum to get out of a bad situation. Last; not always a available when I have got myself stuck, but if you have sand, kitty litter, or melting slat you can pour it around your tires to gain traction and almost always it out. Once you have some traction try to rock your vehicle out. With rocking a vehicle you must be careful – it can and will damage your transmission if you do it to aggressive. The main thing to keep in mind with rocking is go one direction until you start to loss traction then go back the other direction hopefully gaining valuable inches at a time to gain enough moment to get out. These are first try methods that can hopefully get you out of being stuck before you have to call a tow truck.
Next for the big trucks, you guys have had a truck driving job for a long time so there in not much we can tell that you do not already know. Mainly, you know when you should be driving and when you should not. So here is more of a checklist of what you should be doing before you start your trip. As we all know if you get a big rig stuck there is not much we can do to get it out. So before you go, check your wipers and washer fluid to make sure that you are not close to running out and having you windshield freeze or blur up on you. Make sure you have a spare blanket and a few extra canned goods in-case you do have to pull over for the night. Obviously, you are going to need more space to stop so I don’t have to tell you to put extra space between you and others. Mostly, others around you are your biggest worry so keep an extra eye out for the knuckleheads that are driving around like they are invincible you are almost certain to see them up the road in a mile or two in trouble. We hope it is at least not in the way of your truck!
Tags: Truck Drivers
