Give me LOTS of room...

It was raining this morning. Temperatures in the mid-40's. Wandering across large parking lots, in search of a bathroom, under an umbrella that was entirely too small.

But I did get awake and washed and ready to drive, eventually. Shortly afterward I was driving city streets south of Memphis, on my way to a customer that wasn't reachable by Interstate.

I don't like driving city streets. Today was an excellent, if low key, example of why.

Several blocks ahead I saw a traffic light go yellow, then red. Plenty of time. I took my foot off the accelerator, moved it to the brake pedal, and pressed gently. The truck began to slow as I felt the brakes catch.

And release.

And catch.

And release.

Less than 30 mph. Gentle braking. And still the trailer wheels were locking up on the barely-wet paving, forcing the ABS* to intervene.

It's not the first time I've had traction problems at a red light. At least twice I've ended six or eight feet into an intersection, breathing a small prayer of gratitude that nobody was coming across. A few other times I wondered if I was going to stop before I reached that tiny bumper ahead. And once I looked back and saw the back end of my trailer drifting into the next lane.**

But those times involved slush, or really heavy rain, sometimes with a nice downhill slope to make things more interesting. This time the pavement was barely wet! Granted, the trailer was empty, so the back wheels had almost no weight on them, but still.

I hate to draw a moral, but this actually scared me a tiny bit. Having a hundred yards of no traffic in front of me was a great comfort today. I'd really like that to be a routine thing.

I don't suppose you've got some space you could loan me? Or whoever's in that tractor-trailer behind you?

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*Antiskid Braking System, of course. Just letting you know it doesn't mean something different when we way it...

**It didn't quite get there, thank goodness. Traffic started moving ahead of me again, and I could let off the brakes and pull the trailer straight in time. Scary, though...