The Rawlins Mess Revisited...

Seems that I have been there before. You pull into a truck stop, get out, look around, and you think to yourself that perhaps you remember this. You rack your brain trying to associate your current mind picture with the pictures of trucker dump past. Was it the scenery? Did some idiot say something on the CB that has been said many times before?

I was working for Crete Carriers. I was slogging my way through the snow and ice and decided that I would do myself some good to pull in and get some rest. I pulled in and was relieved to see some parking spots available to me. I slipped right in and went in for a shower and something to eat. I was feeling great when I went to bed that night. I woke up when the daylight made it necessary along with the indian alarm clock (that means that I had to pee). I looked outside and it looked as though the trucks were dropped from overhead flying aircraft. There were trucks everywhere, not to mention, the snow piled up on my hood blocking at least 15 inches of my forward view. I was stuck and could not move as there were too many trucks parked catawampus for me to get out. I figured that I would walk in and have some breakfast and read the paper. There was no paper available, so I made due with a trucker magazine. Breakfast was good and someone walked in and I overheard them saying that the highway was closed to the west due to a wreck. The harsh reality had set in right there that I would not be moving anywhere soon along with my unintentional compadres in the parking lot. Soon the wind became a major factor with the blowing snow making the other trucks into silouhettes on the dimming daylight.

Fast forward to today. I was coming east and making great time, when the CB blasted on about an accident at the 206 mile marker just shy of Rawlins. While I was happily running over the occasional ice patch at 60 mph, there were some schedule and mentally challenged drivers doing 75 mph on by me. Sure enough, there was a 4 or 5 truck crash involving some of the fast movers who were ill prepared to handle the conditions as they changed. It really is the same old story that happens over and over again. People that have high assumptions about their driving abilities meet adventure and danger on the highway.

Here is my opinion on driving ability:

1. I am only a good driver if I am driving safely. Safe means taking into account all road conditions and using all reasonable information available to me. It also applies to my ability to operate that vehicle with enough sleep and a good attitude for driving.

2. Ice is ice and ice is slippery. Use all the trucker wives tales you want. If you are on ice there are things for the most part that you can use to make yourself safe. You can slow down, steer mildly and brake like there is an eggshell on the pedal that you do not want to break. The one thing that is often ignored is the pull over and park in a safe place option. Sometimes you just need to give the salt truck a chance to help make it safer for you.

3. Hot freight and pressure from the dispatcher equals death or injury. Not that we don't need a little prodding now and again, but, when you have a dispatcher telling you to get over that mountain when they are sitting behind a warm desk and are not putting their livlihood on the line by proceeding into certain danger, I just tell them to back the hell off. Hot freight cools off awful quick when that truck is on its side in the ditch.

4. Courtesy goes along way when you are in bad weather. Signal your intentions. Let the other driver know when he is by you by dimming your headlights briefly. Do not be one of those knuckleheads that flashes with the brights. And speaking of lights...use them, even if it is only raining in the daytime. That visibility goes along way as well.

5. Don't speed. Any accident situation can be recreated as a mathmatical problem. The weight of the vehicle, road condition, visibility, road contour and speed all add up together to establish the findings when there is an accident. There are many more factors to consider as well. There are data bases of information that law enforcement uses to establish the speed part of the equasion in an accident re-creation. Don't let the speed of your vehicle take you into the accident too fast. Speed is the part of the potential accident that all to often, the driver chooses to his dismay.

6. Drive within your limits and the limits of the law. When there is an accident, the first thing that happens besides all the usual things like removing the vehicles and treating the injured, is the contacting of the company and getting information on where and when the truck was running. There are many ways for this to occur. The most common is the Quaalcomm but there are also fuel and other receipts with their date and time stamping. This is all compared to what you as the driver "said" on your logbook. In bad weather, it is wise to have those times and places match your logbook as best as possible. Do not expect your company to go to bat for you or the dispatcher that prodded you to stand up in your defense should there be an accident. You will know full well the view from under the bus as you will be thrown there quickly. The company line universally will be that the company does not condone or recommend drivers to drive in an unsafe manner or when the weather is dangerous.

7. Common sense...when the weather is bad, there is no time to screw around. Keep off the phone and CB. Keep the stereo volume low as the CB can warn you of what is ahead. Avoid running side by side on icy roads. Do your best to increase your following distance. If the trucks are driving badly around you, back out of it and let them go on. Do not keep yourself in a dangerous situation...get out of it by being proactive to danger instead of being reactive. If you have to react with a panic stop, chances are that you are not noticing what is ahead of you and that you are too late.

8. Drive ahead. I know, you are going ahead or forward...but actually look forward. Way forward. Those brake lights at 300 feet will not give you enough time to react. Better to be able to see those brakes go on at 1/2 mile and have the time to stop with control.

9. Leave the Jake brake off or use the lower settings if you need to slow down. The Jake brake will behave like your regular brakes on your drive tires. So will sudden or abrupt down shifts.

10. Keep the cruise control off. That cruise control does not know that it is snowing outside. It will simply try to accelerate to keep the truck up to its set speed. If that happens at the wrong time, you will get the chance to test your supertrucker skills at handling a spinout at 60 mph. Not what I call fun I can tell you.

11. Keep your eyes on the 4 wheeled vehicles. The people driving cars and pickups are not professional drivers and no matter where they live, they do not drive anything near 140,000 miles per year in adverse conditions. There are many situations going on in cars. Distracting children, bad drivers, poor maintance, bad tires just to list a few. These things will affect the way they drive and for the most part, passing a truck on an icy road scares the hell out of them.

12. Do not tailgate. Do not tailgate. Do not tailgate...

I am sure that there are many more things that come to mind but I only have so much time to write. Be safe out there and if you look in the mirror and see a complete idiot, please stay the hell out of a big truck. The roads are dangerous enough as it is. Dedication :)