My name is Qaeleb and I'm a big truck driver. :P
I've been driving for over 5 years now. Truck driving is a 2nd career after doing aircraft maintenence for 20 years. I typically spend 24 days out then home for four and drive all lower 48 states. My safety record is very good, I've never been cited or even pulled over by authrities and the only accident I've been involved in was determined to be DOT non-preventable on my part. I currently have something like 550,000 miles driving a big truck. Just saying this to show I do have some experience sharing the road in all kinds of conditions.
One thing that has always impressed me is how well big trucks do on ice. As long as I have decent enough weight and there are no strong crosswinds my experience has been I do much better than the four wheelers and have very good control and normally can drive 10 - 15 mph on avg what they do with no problem at all. Normally on a four lane highway I end up in the passing lane passing up four wheelers which have a more difficult time safely driving. Not sure why trucks do better, they just do. But, throw in some wind and a light load and I'll be looking for a parking spot quickly.
The vast majority of truck drivers I run across do take safety very seriously and are good guys, the bad ones I've run across have been a very small percentage, but they are out there. I run into a LOT more 4 wheelers who do incredibly stupid things around me while a truck driver doing something unsafe is rare in my personal experience. I have noticed a trend though that normally the ones who do stupid things normally drive for operations in which the driver is normally home daily and truckers who spend days or weeks out on the road are typically safer drivers. Drivers of containers and logging trucks are IMO the most dangerous drivers out there but not all of them.
Reading what you experienced I'm undecided about the trucks passing you being unsafe. From what you posted it seems you were uneasy with it but not mad. However the truck driver tail gating you is very unsafe and just plain stupid in the best of weather conditions but to do so on ice?! That truck driver has issues and is unsafe on the road and needs to find a new job! If something like that should ever happen to you again try to get the company name and truck or at least trailer number and report the driver to their safety department. Trucking companies have a very low tolerance for unsafe drivers, esp of this type.
As a member of the truck driving community I do apologize that you had this experience, there is absolutely no excuse for a truck driver to put your life in danger like that, completely unacceptable.
BTW I drove much of I-30 today. Started my day in Waco TX and ended up at exit 106 in AR where I'm parked for the night. Looked like numorous vehicles had ended up off the road along the way but only saw 3 big trucks still off the road but 2 of them were being worked on and both should be cleaned up way before morning I would think.