Safety is the PRIORITY when operating commercial vehicles. Weather conditions lately across the country have made it challenging for CDL drivers.  Locally, there were dozens of crashes this morning.  Oklahoma had problems earlier today.  And here is a report from Iowa the other day:

An Iowa State Patrol officer took to Twitter to tell truckers to park it when bad weather strikes. His strongly-worded Tweet came after a 40 vehicle pileup on Interstate 80 earlier this week that included a tanker rolling atop two trooper cars.

Trooper Jon Stickney tweeted:

“Truckers, all you are is an 80.000 pound sled on ice. No driver in this world can stop an 80,000 pound sled on the Highway and all we see is 80,000 pounds sleds causing these massive wrecks.”

Stickney’s tweet came after a weather-related pileup closed eastbound I-80 for several hours Thursday, Feb. 4. The collisions occurred east of DesMoines near Newton in blizzard-like conditions. One person was injured in the pileup, which is still under investigation.

“These chain reaction collisions it’s from vehicles and in this case, a lot of them were the commercial motor vehicles, semis traveling too fast and they just ultimately just can’t slow down in time,” Iowa State Patrol Sgt. Alex Dinkla told a local TV station.

The state patrol reportedly responded to more than 235 crashes between Thursday morning at 3 a.m. and Friday night at 6 p.m.

Here is the Rule from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations that requires commercial vehicles to be shut down when the weather conditions result in hazardous conditions”

§392.14   Hazardous conditions; extreme caution.

Extreme caution in the operation of a commercial motor vehicle shall be exercised when hazardous conditions, such as those caused by snow, ice, sleet, fog, mist, rain, dust, or smoke, adversely affect visibility or traction. Speed shall be reduced when such conditions exist. If conditions become sufficiently dangerous, the operation of the commercial motor vehicle shall be discontinued and shall not be resumed until the commercial motor vehicle can be safely operated. Whenever compliance with the foregoing provisions of this rule increases hazard to passengers, the commercial motor vehicle may be operated to the nearest point at which the safety of passengers is assured.

Safe operation is based on smart decisions.  Please do everything you can to keep yourself and fellow motorists safe at all time.