Listening to the traffic reports on Radio two, it seems that every day there are reports of trucks jacknifing. I thought that ABS and other modern aids were supposed to stop this happening. What, other than bad driving, causes jacknifing, and is there anything you can do once it starts to happen to you. It is something that has never happened to me in my limited artic driving experience, and not something I would like to experience.
Sometimes it is difficult to avoid jackknifing. In the states we do a considerable amount of winter driving. I am witness to many bonehead mistakes.
One that happens more often than not is a not-so-bright 4 wheeler passing a truck and then losing nerve and hitting the brakes without leaving proper following distance for the truck.
As long as a truck has enough room, when the trailer initial breaks loose you can accelerate and pull your trailer straight. If you don’t have the room and have to brake hard on glazed/icy roads… that’s when you will usually jackknife.
Yesterday I decided to pull into Barneys at Barnetby Top for the loo and a cuppa, almost to a stop on the A18, then turned right into the parking area.
No hard acceleration or braking, slightly downhill, and the trailer decided it wanted to go faster than the unit, as I was turning, it jacknifed, crunching the airfilter housing (£700, ouch) and the trailer leg caught the fuel tank.
What had happened, the sun had moved round and the area I was in was shaded from the sun and froze over.
Thats my introduction to jacknifing, nice and gentle, first and last I hope.
As for the lunatics today going out on the M180, posted speed limit was 40mph, I was doing about 45mph, the outside of 2 lanes hadn’t been cleared properly, but I had artics flying past me at the full 56mph.
And I’m not sorry if I have offended anyone, I’ve had to deal, in the past, with too many RTAs, don’t want to deal with anymore.
Coming home this evening, the lanes still hadn’t been properly cleared, I was able to safely do 56mph, but had some nutter pass me doing 65mph, suicidal!!! 
The speeding on motorways is normal in my exsperience, (its when they do it through roadworks it REALLY gets to me,) how many seconds do these drivers save per life put at risk.
As to jacknifeing, I’v only done it once. As I turned from one side road into a second, right lane to right lane & my trailer just gently pushed my tractor units rear end & trailer headboard into a hedge, no damage was done, but do to the ice under the wheels it blocked both roads for 10-15 minutes as I attempted to disentangle myself.
When I worked for Fed Ex i found most of the trailers had a very simple and effective anti jack knife system which I am suprised I have seen nowhere else.
Behind the Kingpin was a wedge of metal, the kingpin itself was mounted on a disc which formed part of the coupling plate on the trailer. The wedge allowed normal turning etc but if the driver braked hard a mechanism behind the disc locked the wedge in place making it impossible to fold up or jack knife.
Why didn’t it become widespread I wonder 
For the most part the m18 is only two lanes the snow had been seen coming so why was it not cleared?it should of been and the amount of rfl and duty on fuel could pay for it to be so xxxx times over.
Bilgepump:
Listening to the traffic reports on Radio two, it seems that every day there are reports of trucks jacknifing. I thought that ABS and other modern aids were supposed to stop this happening. What, other than bad driving, causes jacknifing, and is there anything you can do once it starts to happen to you. It is something that has never happened to me in my limited artic driving experience, and not something I would like to experience.
As one who has jacknifed I have to say it was one of the scariest things I’ve ever come through. The rain that was falling when I left the depot was, 40 miles away, turning to ice when it hit the road. I was coming up to a roundabout at between 15 and 20 mph and coming off of the roundabout the trailer pushed the rear end of the unit onto the path/verge. Fortunately the whole lot stayed upright but what a mess of the cab. 
I remember the whole episode seemed to play in slow motion and no, once you’re in a slide you’re in the lap of the gods cause without grip you can’t get control back. 
Within 5 minutes of this happening the gritter truck arrives, stopped to see if there was any help he could offer, and the driver goes flying cracking his head on the road fortunately more damage to pride than anything else.
If you haven’t yet been in a jacknife count yourself fortunate and I hope you never experience one. I’m sure that the external temperature indicators, abs and all the other aids help but sometimes stuff happens in spite of your best efforts. In this instance every one walked away to do the paperwork but that’s not always the case.
one of our trucks jacknifed on the a5 during the icey conditions. thank god the driver was ok (little bruised and shook up) but the unit was a right off(nearly smashed the cab off the chassis)
jon
rip v706
After coming to a stop and there is no damage how do you get out, can you drive out of it or do you have to unhitch the trailer?
Havn’t had a jackife but did have a scary experience Tuesday. It snowed like Billyo in the afternoon. Had to stop on the way back on a hill. Put the handbreak on and started to slide backwards. Bothered me a bit but not half as much as it bothered the bloke behind me. Got out of it by putting the diff lock on and very gently moving forewards found traction. Brought me to a gentle halt. Went for a change of underwear. Only about half a mile from the yard.
shedender:
After coming to a stop and there is no damage how do you get out, can you drive out of it or do you have to unhitch the trailer?
Depends on the circumstances shed. In no damage scenarios, are they true jacknifes, I guess you could drive away but you’ld have to do a pretty thorough check before going to far.
In my case the wrecker pulled the unit back onto the road, unhooked the trailer for a second unit to tow back to the depot and the damaged unit went back with a front lift.
In other circumstances you might have to tow the trailer back to staighten out or even crane lfted back onto the wheels.