Time is a major factor in avoiding collisions. If the road conditions are good and your rig is in proper working order, fast reaction time can prevent most accidents. However road conditions are rarely favorable in the winter when storms routinely create slippery pavements, poor visibility, treacherous black ice and impenetrable whiteouts. But as we all know, the biggest road hazard when the weather turns nasty is four-wheelers. There is something about a little sleet or snow (even a spot of hard rain can do it) that turns car drivers into unpredictable idiots. In the winter, truckers have to allow maximum reaction time to stay safe.
Racecar drivers are trained to react to dangerous situations in about half a second. It takes your average trucker three times as long, about 1.5 seconds, to react to an emergency. At 60 mph a rig can travel 120 feet in 1.5 seconds. In good weather, if you’re maintaining a decent following distance and no car has slipped into your safety zone, that’s plenty of time to act. In bad weather, you’d better at least double your safe stopping distance. But what if you’re fiddling with the radio, reaching into the cooler for a sandwich, taking a gulp of coffee or doing a routine mirror scan? Any distraction, no matter how fleeting, is enough to cause a problem.
"Scanning the mirrors takes two seconds, and that means you travel 170 feet without looking at the road," says David Pierson of Eaton Corp.’s Vehicle Solutions Business Unit. That’s traveling at 58 mph. To see how far you’d travel at other speeds, say 65 mph; multiply your speed by 1.47 to get the distance traveled in feet each second.
There are products that can help you maintain safe distances; some even warn you when there’s a car in your blind spot. Eaton makes a proximity warning system that alerts drivers when another vehicle gets too close. For information on their Vorad system, click the link.
It can be tough to stop a rig, even under favorable conditions. This winter, stay alert, watch out for the little guys who share the road, always give yourself more stopping distance than you think you need, keep an exit strategy in mind in case things get dicey, get proper rest to keep your reaction time sharp, and pull off the road if conditions become dangerous. Let’s stay safe out there.
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