Rookie Mistake Nearly Caused A Crash

So this mistake was made by a swift truck and I have made it and a lot of rookies have but in this case it almost caused a crash so I am going to tell the story and hope it helps some rookies on here.

So I was driving on this interstate in Washington state and the speed limit was currently 65 and I was only going about 45-50 because it was raining and snowing pretty hard and there wasn't much traffic no one to pass so I was in the right lane and then this swift truck at like no speed merged and I was going like 48 and my truck is equipped with a little radar in the front letting me know the speed of the vechile in front and if the car in front is going slower and I am getting close fast it beeps to let me know. So I am driving in heavy rain and snow trying to see then my radar starts beeping a lot and it showed the vechile in front was going 8mph and I couldn't see it yet started slowing a bit looking and all of a sudden there it was like 10ft away going under 10 while I am going over 40 I immediately swerved to avoid collision and passed in the left. The trailer was white so was the fog from the rain and I was so close to a high speed crash.

Now I made a mistake and the rookie swift made one that I think we can learn from. My mistake was visibility was low and roads were slippery so I should have probably called it and parked just didn't want to be late for my dropoff but no excuse weather wasn't really that good so I stopped after that mini heart attack. Also another mistake to learn from is if your getting back on from shoulder to road build up to almost the speed limit or at least flip on your hazards because if my truck was equipped with that radar this story could have gone a lot different like I wouldn't have been looking so closely. Both mistakes often made and can be learned from. Stay safe guys

Thanks for sharing. Very good lessons for me as a rookie

I’m not entirely clear on all of the circumstances…but here are my thoughts based on the information offered.

As soon as you saw the Swift truck merging into your lane two things should have happened:

1- immediately move to your left if the lane is clear. Let him in…give-way to safely coexist.

2- if making a lane change is unsafe, with urgency, slow your truck down, in a controlled fashion to match the other truck’s speed. Depending on weight and incline, from a dead stop it would take at least 30 seconds for the Swift truck to accelerate to 45. Space management in this type of weather is really important. Expect things like this to happen at the worst possible time. Yes the Swiftie made a serious mistake, but this sort of thing will happen again. Anticipate it, your Spidey Senses should trigger greater care when approaching anything in the berm or merging onto a highway/interstate. You’ll be better prepared next time. Glad you were able to prevent an accident.

Thanks for sharing this.