The Truck Jackknife: What You Need to Know
Winter’s frigid temperatures, slippery road conditions, and often-limited visibility create optimal jackknife conditions.
Winter’s frigid temperatures, slippery road conditions, and often-limited visibility create optimal jackknife conditions. Even the most experienced truckers are at risk unless they are careful. Jackknife consequences range from equipment damage to death. As a trucker, you should know as much as possible about how they happen to better prepare yourself to manage risks to you and the other drivers on the road.
Driving Forces
When your truck is driving down the road, it creates what is known as kinetic energy. Energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be transferred. What this means for you and your truck is that you will be fine, unless you try to come to an abrupt stop. Normally, kinetic energy is expelled in the form of friction- your truck’s tires gripping the road to slow the vehicle down. In a jackknife situation there is too much kinetic energy, in this case momentum, built up for the trailer to stop when it should. The cab may stop but the trailer will keep going until all of that momentum is expended, thus creating the jackknife.
Dangerous Lack of Traction
Unfortunately, a jackknife can happen whether roads are wet, dry, or icy. The often windy, wet, icy winter weather can create optimal jackknife conditions. On a dry road, a jackknife is almost always a result of the truck’s breaks locking. While locking breaks can still cause a jackknife on an icy road, the truck simply has to lose a bit of traction from the ice which makes it even more treacherous. Using your breaks too much on slick, icy roads can also cause a jackknife.
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