The perils of Snow Driving & HGV Drivers

Today was a very good day for teaching, as many of my learners learned the basics of controlling a car at slow speeds with snow and ice under the wheels. Covering important points of how to pull away without wheel spinning by using clutch control in 1st, 2nd & 3rd gears without the use of the gas pedal. Extremely useful skill to have in these conditions and one it seems many qualified drivers on our roads fail to display with what can be disastrous consequences.

Today was also a near fatal day for myself and my learner whilst we were driving on the High Dyke from Colsterworth to Grantham after taking a trip on to the A1. This was between 9:15 & 10:15 so the roads were still quite bad at that time. An allegedly 'professional' lorry driver who was driving far too fast for the conditions and the type of vehicle that was being driven began to lose control of the back end steering and the long wheel base HGV began to jack-knife after taking a bend to fast!. There was no where for us to hide from this giant and fortunately for us he/she made a correction to the steering and avoided what have been for us fatal consequences at the last moment.

A full jack-knife of a HGV usually involves the trailer section spinning off the ground followed by the drivers cab being spun around and then laying side down on the road and WE would have been directly underneath it.

So beware of slushy roads with high speed professional drivers, perhaps they need to give me a call for some extra lessons!