This picture was taken last week between a number of accidents that unfortunately resulted in a fatality. A passenger vehicle was not able to stop when they came up to a commercial truck that had stopped for a 6 vehicle accident ahead (fatal accident is not shown in respect of the victim and their family).

When temperatures are near the freezing point, and the road looks bare and wet, but there’s no road spray coming off your tires or other vehicles and there’s no salt residue drying on to your windshield. That’s an almost certain sign that you’re driving on a sheet of ice. It is important to watch for the signs that the road, what you see from other vehicles, how your vehicle is reacting to braking and throttle applications to determine the conditions on the roads.

In this situation, the driver that took this picture had noticed the signs due to lack of road spray for how wet the road looked, and a slight slip on engine brake application. Due to this the driver had already slowed down substantially, and was able to come to a safe stop when he came up to the 6 vehicle accident by moving the vehicle in to the shoulder where there was some sand remaining from previous applications to provide additional traction.

I encourage all of you that read this to share something you’ve experienced that someone else here could learn from in the comments.