I get around great in my pickup truck. Alot of it has to do with who is
driving I suppose, if you do not know how to drive a truck on slick
roads, it will not do very good.
Curt Raymond wrote:
In any kind of bad weather a pickup truck is about the WORST vehicle to have.
The pickups of today are especially bad. Big engines, light rear ends and bad
gas mileage.
But wait you say, how could bad gas mileage make pickup trucks more dangerous?
I know this one because I've been there. Bad gas mileage gets worse in four
wheel drive so some pickup truck drivers will try to get away without being in
four wheel drive in conditions where they really should be using it.
A pickup truck in slippery conditions in 2wd is downright dangerous, especially
an automatic transmission truck, especially an overpowered automatic
transmissioned truck (which is like 90% of pickups being made today).
Don't get me wrong I love having a v8 in my Dodge Dakota but having taken on a
guardrail while traveling sideways at 60mph up Rt 95 at the tail end of a
snowstorm I've learned to be vary wary...
We were going up a fairly small hill, anybody who's driven 95 in southern Maine
knows its made up of mostly gently rolling hills. The snow had quit an hour or
so before and the roads were mostly clear so I'd shifted into 2wd to save some
gas. I was young and dumb.
I was going a bit faster than was prudent (young and dumb) even though the back
end of the truck had kicked out a bit a couple times before.
So finally the back end kicked out so bad I couldn't get it back. The big
problem was that I was used to driving a manual transmission which doesn't
shift by itself. On those hills the auto would shift and the increase torque
would send us skittering. I've since learned to manually take it out of
overdrive in those conditions. Oh and I drive slower now too and gas mileage be
dammed I keep it in 4wd.
Anyway my story ends pretty well, we slid down the crown of the road into the
guardrail which was fortunately covered in snow. Bounced off, slid 180 degrees
and came to a stop without getting hit by traffic. The bumper was dented up and
some plastic trim damaged but still intact. I've left it that way as a
reminder...
Note that at this point I'd been driving for 6 years and had logged probably
90,000 miles, much of it in the snow. The problem was that I was inexperienced
with that vehicle and fueled with a bit of remaining young man testosterone
invincibility... I'd bought the Dakota myself with my own money...
-Curt
--
Kaleb C. Striplin/Claremore, OK
(2x) 91 300D 2.5 Turbo, 90 420SEL, 89 560SEL,
87 300SDL, 85 380SE 5.0 Euro, 84 190D 2.2,
81 240D, 76 240D, 76 300D, 72 250C, 69 250
http://www.okiebenz.com
