Quote:
Originally Posted by TailHooked
JR is right on people not knowing how to drive for the conditions. I have driven everything from a 24ft stake bed truck down. I can't tell if there was any treatment on the road, but KCMO side streets aren't properly addressed early in the morning. To me that was a steep hill to drive on ice. Once the road has glazed over, you are there for the ride. You can't reverse yourself once you are over the peak. The only thing you can do is try to steer the vehicle. The curves even make that difficult. Your momentum wants to keep you in a straight line. As you can see he clipped the blue car and ended up hitting the curb. Speed played a part, but the driver was doomed once cresting the hill. I have been on roads like that. It isn't a fun trip to the bottom. Just lucky to never had a accident.
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Tail hook,
I agree with everything you say, except ont thing. There is something you can do, and he should have done.
Most people don't understand or think about the use of the transmission when you are on a hill, or when you are on ice. In those conditions, especially when in a large truck or bus, one must use the transmission as a brake. Get in low gear and do it before you start down the hill, or encounter ice.
You will not have a 4 wheel drive on the large vehicles, but you will have the transmission, and hopefully a manual gear shift. I say hopefully because even the truck rental places have installed automatic transmissions (I hate them on trucks) for the 26 - 28 foot box trucks, and even the semi tractors in some cases. I hate that, but that is the way things are. When you have an automatic transmission on a big vehicle it is just harder to stop. With a manual, when you see an emergency, you just start clutching, double clutching and downshifting as fast as possible while staying off the brake - or using the break softly (right foot for the soft brake, left foot for the clutch) to help bring you down in the gears. This works on ice better than the brakes.
Unfortuntly, a lot of young people just have no idea of how to use a manual shift.
I once had a delivery pickup with manual shift: the young people working here hated it. I even had a vice president who wouldn't use it and didn't want to learn because it was too much of a challenge at his age: he held a Ph.D.. What? All of that education, and he was afraid to learn how to drive a stick shift.
While I am writing I will do what I am famous for: write some more. I like to write.
So here is the story.
In the 60s I was going over a mountain in in Western Virginia. As we reached the summit there was a sign saying:
Truckers
Long Decline
Get in Low Gear
A short distance later
Truckers
Get in Low Gear
A short distance later
Truckers
You need to
Get in Low Gear
Further down the grade A full sigh across the entire highway
Truckers
Arrow to the right
Emergency escapt route
WE TOLD YOU TO GET IN LOW GEAR
The escape route went down a hill and up another hill to slow them down. The top of the hill was cut off with a big sand pit at the top of the hlll
Use the low gear, it is there for a reason.
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This weather!
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