Drive with Caution: Winter Driving Tips from Episode 54 of After the Crash

Here’s the moral of the driving-on-winter-roads story: Take it slow. Give yourself extra time. Your patience could save your life.

A meteorologist and a personal injury attorney agree that speed is one of the riskiest factors on slick roads, and the numbers back them up. In 2022, the winter months saw excessive speed cause about 17% of all collisions in Indiana, while only 5% of the state’s summer wrecks were speed related.

Unfortunately, many semi-truck drivers are undereducated on or ignore proper winter road conduct. Some of them drive the same in adverse weather as they would on a normal day, and this negligence leads to tragedy.

On the most recent episode of After the Crash, meteorologist Randy Ollis joined truck-wreck attorney David Craig. Here are some lessons they said every driver should remember in winter.

How Even Mild Winter Weather Can Make Roads Dangerous

Many people overestimate how much precipitation it takes to endanger drivers. We don’t take snow seriously until it covers the road. If we don’t see obvious layers of ice, we assume we’re in the clear.

This way of thinking is dangerous.

When any amount of precipitation falls, it can make the roads slick. In winter, as little as one-tenth of an inch of ice is enough to get between your tires and the road, causing loss of traction.

In fact, the resources that govern semi-trucks, like the FMCSA and CDL Manual, require truckers to use extreme caution when driving in hazardous conditions. This means that drivers of commercial vehicles must:

• Reduce speed by one-third on wet roads
• Reduce speed by half or more on packed snow
• Pull over and stop driving if roads are icy

Even without precipitation, winter weather can be disastrous. Cold temperatures can make tires lose pressure, fluids slow, windshields freeze, and more. Professional truckers are required to take extra steps in winter to prepare their big rigs for cold temperatures.

When these drivers are improperly trained, they can cause wrecks. David Craig, as an attorney who has represented truck-wreck victims for over 35 years, has seen this happen.

In one case, a driver from Mexico was passing through Indiana to deliver a load. He had not been trained on snow or ice. At night, as the trucker backed his semi out of a factory, the trailer became disconnected from the tractor and lost power.

David’s client couldn’t see the trailer because all of its lights had turned off. His vehicle struck the side of the trailer and became lodged beneath it. He survived the wreck but suffered fractured bones and damaged muscles and ligaments in his legs.

An accident investigation revealed that the driver, since he only had experience in warm climates, failed to properly winterize his semi. He had used the wrong type of grease — one meant for use in warm temperatures — on the fifth wheel, where the trailer attaches to the tractor. This allowed the trailer to slip loose.

When this wreck occurred, the roads were clear. They weren’t piled with snow or ice. Most people would have assumed winter weather had nothing to do with this crash.

But winter weather doesn’t have to be extreme to affect our vehicles or the roads.

Speeding and Poor Preparation: The Leading Causes of Indiana Winter Accidents

Randy Ollis, during his 39 years as a meteorologist with WISH-TV, discovered a trend that continues year after year.

It begins with the first snow of the year. Sometimes, snow falls unexpectedly, as early as October. Sometimes, it’s only a light dusting.

Yet, every year, drivers fail to take the first snow seriously. They don’t slow down enough. Hundreds of preventable wrecks occur. Randy said he would actually prefer 5 or 6 inches for the first snowfall — enough to alert drivers to use caution.

Many tragic winter accidents can be traced back to a lack of preparation.

If you’ve ever seen someone peering through a small gap in their windshield — the only clear spot on an otherwise ice-covered window — then you’ve seen a driver’s failure to prepare.

Imagine a heavy truck, like a dump truck or an 18-wheeler. These vehicles have huge blind spots along their sides, front and rear. If their drivers don’t fully remove ice and snow from all of the windows, their visibility is reduced even more.

Combine this limited visibility with highway speeds on wet, slick or snowy roads, and a crash will likely follow.

“Unfortunately, people are in accidents, and they cause injuries or deaths, when it all could have been avoided had they slowed down, taken time and prepared properly,” said truck-wreck attorney David Craig in episode 54 of After the Crash.

Why a Skilled Truck Accident Lawyer Investigates Weather Conditions

How can you sort the good attorneys from the bad ones? Look at their team, plan and urgency.

An experienced truck-wreck attorney knows that winter-weather wrecks are urgent. If your lawyer doesn’t send a team to investigate the crash as soon as possible, your case will be in jeopardy.

Accident reconstructionists can examine the scene of a wreck and the vehicles involved to figure out how and why the collision occurred. This helps the attorney establish fault. However, if your lawyer fails to act quickly, crucial evidence can be lost.

In the underride wreck discussed earlier, David discovered that the driver’s trucking company was trying to move the equipment out of Indiana so investigators couldn’t examine it. Fortunately, he was able to issue a subpoena and retrieve the vehicle, which allowed experts to discover that the wrong type of grease had been used.

However, road conditions may change before reconstructionists can study the scene. This is where meteorologists like Randy Ollis come in.

Craig, Kelley & Faultless hires Randy as a consultant in winter-weather cases. He provides background information on weather conditions — snow, ice, temperature, the state of the road — at the time of a wreck.

Essential Winter Driving Tips for Young and Inexperienced Drivers

In 2022, Indiana recorded 136 fatal collisions on wet, snowy and icy roads. Nearly 6,000 wrecks on these roads resulted in injuries. This data also shows that 7,891 crashes were attributed to “speed too fast for weather conditions.”

States across the U.S. have received record levels of snowfall in 2025, and precipitation is expected to continue through the winter, Randy said. Since Indiana has been several degrees cooler than usual, the snow is sticking to the ground for longer.

Now is the time to educate young drivers. If you are a parent, teach your child to stay safe in any form of winter weather.

• Take your teenager somewhere safe to practice driving on slick surfaces.
• Teach them how to anticipate black ice. If snow and ice melts, then re-freezes, black ice is likely to form. The most dangerous spots are under bridges or in shaded areas.
• Emphasize the importance of concentrating while driving. Using a cell phone, pulling up navigation, eating, and even riding with friends are dangerous distractions.
• Inform them that semis and other big rigs have vast blind spots, so they should stay far away from these vehicles when possible.
• Potholes will appear soon, caused by the freeze-thaw cycle of water on the road. Make sure your young driver knows that it is better to hit a pothole than to jerk the wheel and cause a collision. It is also better to decrease speed during pothole season.
• Remind them that speeding is never acceptable on wet, snowy or icy roads. Even driving the speed limit is dangerous on slippery roads. Maintaining a safe following distance from other vehicles, driving well below the speed limit, and turning slowly are some of the best ways to protect yourself as a driver in winter.

Why Craig, Kelley & Faultless LLC is the Right Choice for Your Truck Accident Case

Attorneys who are board certified in their area of practice by the National Board of Trial Advocacy are some of the most qualified. There are only four attorneys certified in truck-accident law in Indiana — and two of them, David Craig and Scott Faultless, are founding partners of Craig, Kelley & Faultless.

Attorneys at Craig, Kelley & Faultless represent personal injury clients in Indianapolis and St. Louis. They also handle heavy-truck wreck cases across the country, with lawyers licensed in Indiana, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, Iowa, and Tennessee.

Contact them today for a free case consultation at (800) ASK-DAVID or with the online form.

Listen to episode 54 of After the Crash, featuring Randy Ollis, on Apple or Spotify Podcasts or view it on YouTube.

 David W. Craig is a nationally recognized truck accident lawyer who sits on the Board of Regents of the Academy of Truck Accident Attorneys (which requires the board certification in truck accident law). He is the managing partner and one of the founding partners of Craig, Kelley & Faultless LLC. He is recognized as a Top 10 Trucking Trial Lawyer and Top 100 Trial Lawyer in Indiana by the National Trial Lawyers, as well as a Top 50 Indiana lawyer by Super Lawyers. He was the recipient of the National Thurgood Marshall “Fighting for Justice” Award for his work helping victims of truck wrecks. David is the author of Semitruck Wreck, A Guide for Victims and Their Families, written to help people navigate a terrible situation by answering questions that come after a tragic wreck. He also hosts the podcast After the Crash, where you can gain valuable information about the dangers involving semis and large trucks that do not follow Indiana law safety protocol regarding speed, weather conditions, maintenance upkeep, etc.