I usually keep a thermometer strapped to the driver mirror, or if your lucky have a truck with an onboard outside temp reading. If I see that it gets to 0 degrees (Canadian), ie freezing point I assume that I'm driving over patches of black ice and change driving patterns to allow for greater stopping distance and loss of traction. I also turn off the Jakes.

 

whats not to understand with his post? No signs of any editing in the post?

 

It's a simple matter of a missing comma. I saw what was missing the first time I read it.

"Without warning the tractor slid sideways I quickly steered into it and luckily got control of it (in the left lane), before I slid into the ditch."

Or, "Without warning the tractor slid sideways I quickly steered into it and luckily got control of it (in the left lane). I was able to get control before it slid into the ditch."

Why would a person say, "luckily I got control of it, then I slid into the ditch."?

 

Thank you Colin. While I acknowledge my error missing the comma, it would make no sense to read it any other way. I tend to type these things with 10 other windows open and I don't proof read it like I would if I were writing a letter or something along those lines. It is ironic I just read a report on the different (but wrong) versions of English used in the United States. This is clearly an example of proper English (albiet not quite proper in structure) being misinturpreted.


[EDIT] To those who don't understand:

If I were to say "I was standing on a loose peice of soil. I grabbed on to a rope just before I fell." Would you take from context that I grabbed on to the rope but fell anyway? It is the same thing.

It means that the result of me not gaining control would have with no uncertainty meant I would have gone into the ditch. The process had started, the interruption in the process was the regain of control.

Since I don't write professionaly, I am a little rusty since my college entrance exams in which I scored in the 98 percentile in English and grammar mechanics; however if you would like I could probably consult some texts and give you some more examples in syntax. Let me know.

sarcasm is a bit much too but when almost everyone on here, many College Edgeucated, say that you were writing that you went into the Ditch maybe you should look at it.

 

I hit a bad spell of heavy snow and sleet yesterday morning around Banff, AB. they were calling for 4-6 inches of the white stuff the day we we're through there. Chased the rain and cold all the way home from Seattle, WA. You can definately tell that fall/ winter is not too far off now!

 

Suppose to snow here next week too-Little Early even for us.

 

I guess the reason I misunderstood what you had said was because if I had said something like that, I would have stated that "I had gained control and DIDN'T slide into the ditch." The way I read what you said was that you regained control, but also slid into the ditch after that. Sorry I misunderstood what you said. ops: ops: