I guess using the exhaust brake on slippery roads is much like using the handbrake on your car to slow you up in good conditions. (not that i do!)
You ‘can’ do it if you’re gentle and not too much. But if you were to yank it up then you spin about all over!
It’s like accelerating really, you dont want to overcome the grip your tyres have on the running surface.
dennisw1:
using the handbrake on your car to slow you up in good conditions. (not that i do!).
i have done that quite a few times thanks to idiots pulling out on me. very gently though so the wheels dont lock up
on a side note, i delivered some POS to the local Land-Rover dealer today.
It was quite busy. All those people who’ve decided they need a Land-Rover to compensate for their lack of driving ability 
Mal:
i now fully get what youre saying dave, and i wont try and teach me granny how to ■■■■ eggs anyway!
Who are you calling a granny 
And what’s all this about sucking eggs 
You’ll have to excuse me now while I nip over to the QI Talk Forum. I’ve got a thread going over there about explanations or otherwise of nonsensical, or otherwise, well-known phrases and sayings
Salut, David.
if its a nonsensical phrases site dave it’ll come in handy to translate any of my posts!
Spardo:
Mal:
i would avoid the engine brake dave, :I had a dash switch on my F89 which kept the exhaust on all the time, switched it on at the top of the Blanc, both ways, on countless winter trips and gently lowered myself down with that and the foot brake through all the twists and turns on packed snow in perfect safety. And, I have never used a snow chain in my life. But you must leave it on all the time, the sudden use half way down could be disastrous.
Salut, David.
Im not sure that was the intention of those switches David, I believe that they were only there to help the engine warm up quicker in a morning and to eliminate the white smoke by closing the exhauster butterfly 50%. but I am willing to be corrected 
This weeks snow in Kent just proved how unprepared we are for winter, it happens every year and still comes as a shock 
I arrived at the Channel Tunnel on Tuesday afternoon to be met by 3 hour delays because of the snow. The platforms were frozen over, and vehicles could not get up the slope off the train. They had not put any salt down until about 1630. Eventually I got on a train and we were sat ages waiting to move. As we set off I saw that the bus had come down the slope and rammed a truck at the bottom 
You may or may not be corrected Malc, I always understood that it was a non-standard switch fitted by a previous driver to save the floor button drilling a hole in his foot . It was a push-pull switch, not a flick.
Whatever the origin of it, it was very useful, and safe, which was the point I was trying to make.
Salut, David.
Spardo:
Mal:
i now fully get what youre saying dave, and i wont try and teach me granny how to ■■■■ eggs anyway!You’ll have to excuse me now while I nip over to the QI Talk Forum. I’ve got a thread going over there about explanations or otherwise of nonsensical, or otherwise, well-known phrases and sayings
Right Mal, straight from the QI horses mouth:
QI:
The phrase means that one should not waste time advising one’s elders to do what they already know how to do. It comes from the time when false teeth were less common than they are now and people who had lost their teeth had to eat raw or softly boiled eggs as they were unable to chew anything solid.
Apparently there is a Polish version:
‘Don’t teach your father to have children’
And a Welsh version:
‘Don’t teach a parson to pray’.
So there you have it, but what’s all this about horses mouths
Salut, David.
amazing what you find out, i didnt think it was about no teeth!
I’ve been reading this with interest, especially posts from those with loads of really bad weather, .i.e. Foreign weather experience.
I’ve always found getting moving especially when you are trying to turn out of a junction more of a problem than stopping, but as other have said it’s all about being gentle and thinking ahead. The biggest problem about driving in the snow is normally the other drivers.
Two questions, it has been touched on about using a seperate trailer brake to keep the trailer striaght. Most trucks don’t have one, but is the first position, before the lock on click, on the handbrake a trailer service brake?
And does anybody have any experience of using either it or a seperate trailer brake?
The trailer brake most people refer to Muckles, we used to call ‘the dead man’ short for ‘dead man’s handle’ and was a very useful piece of kit because it dangled the tractor unit from it rather than trying to overtake it. For some reason they were outlawed, or at least dispensed with, many years ago. I’m not sure if the 1st position fulfills the same function but I doubt it, but if it did I wouldn’t dream of using it - too close and easy to move to full lock position and lock up the drive axle, the very last thing you want to do .
Salut, David.
A lot of the continentals had the seperate trailer brake, 140/141 and Volvo.
They were good if you were pulling ferry trailers with your own motor, you could make a set of unit brake linings last for 10 years
Spardo:
The trailer brake most people refer to Muckles, we used to call ‘the dead man’ short for ‘dead man’s handle’ and was a very useful piece of kit because it dangled the tractor unit from it rather than trying to overtake it. For some reason they were outlawed, or at least dispensed with, many years ago. I’m not sure if the 1st position fulfills the same function but I doubt it, but if it did I wouldn’t dream of using it - too close and easy to move to full lock position and lock up the drive axle, the very last thing you want to doSalut, David.
This is what I’ve been told about basically dangling the Unit from the trailer. but I’ve heard different things about the first position being a service brake, therefore variable. I’d love to konw the truth. I think US trucks still have seperate trailer brakes?
Wheel Nut:
A lot of the continentals had the seperate trailer brake, 140/141 and Volvo.They were good if you were pulling ferry trailers with your own motor, you could make a set of unit brake linings last for 10 years.
Not with Frans Maas trailers, lucky if they had brakes. The trucks on traction work used to go through brakes far quicker than those on General Haulage. Didn’t half wind the boss up having to use his brakes to stop thier trailers.