My school experience

The idea not to do any endorsement or training for these endorsement is a disservice to you. I was a Hazmat, Tanker man myself. Because in those days gasoline or airport fuel was hour for hour the best pay evah.

Im happy you picked up a sponsor ship.

Regarding backing.

It's really simple. Follow the trailer around. And mind your angle of your tractor by eyeballing the angle at your kingpin and drive wheels. Erase the angle as you back in.

You really made a mountain of backing. If this is your rubicon, ask your instructor to give you some extra alone time with the tractor trailer until you can back the #### thing roughly where YOU want it, not where you are told to put it (That will come soon enough) I hate to see you walk on failing to learn backing. Get back in there.

Wait until you discover backing a little wee 20 footer box is harder than a larger 53 foot sweetheart. You gotta keep at it.

If you exhibit over stress body and mind responses totally against backing, do not leave trucking entirely. You can run a class B for box trucks even some with a sleeper for customs work into airports and canada on really urgent and time freight that cannot under any circumstances be interrupted but amounts or too light for a full 18 wheeler trailer treatment.

Trucking school is wonderful. But you will never learn what you need to learn while there. The reason I say this is because in life you will be confronted with certain situations on which life and death will be determined by your next decision while rolling, sitting or otherwise doing some thing with that truck with something going bad around you in a hurry.

Trucking is a good and noble way of life, serving something larger than yourself in the United States as a Nation. We cannot not have truckers fail school or fail to be proactive hunting all the endorsements you want to get. The more you have, the more valuable you are. Literally.

I did let hazmat go after 9-11 I took joy in hauling hazmat correct every time on every load. But 9-11 became something of a grotesque situation in which hazmat was a potential attack vector and authorities were going crazy. I wanted no part of that.

 

We had a 1957 white tractor with a 20 foot pup trailer in school for backing training, one of the things the trailer had was pre-1970 123 braking system.

Looking at the angle was how we were taught in our school back then. It was easier for some people to "Clean up" the angle until straight. Computer gaming featuring trucking with graphics powerful enough to back that trailer with your mirrior will feature a good view of your drives for that reason.

All my life Ive kept an eye on those drives so that if there is ANY angle being formed that is not normal such as on a curve for example, there is a jackknife happening and action needs to be executed before that angle reaches 15 degrees or more. Doing that has helped me get out of many tractor jackknifes and a couple trailer come arounds without wrecking. The first few scared me really badly enough to consider running home to mommy and never taking a chance on anything ever again. But after a few of those it's natural to recover quickly because you see the drives making a angle you don't want in time to do something about it.

 

Don't quit...try again. Heavy mentioned following the trailer in. Another way of saying the same thing is, point the trailer where you want it and then get the tractor in line with it.

Small moves with the wheel. It takes the trailer ten feet of moving before it responds to the steering wheel. It probably takes a more feet before you see the trailer responding to your steering. That means when you don't see it responding, you Jack the steering wheel more resulting in funky angles.

Be patient, idiots can figure out backing...you are smart, I know you can do it.
On pull ups, pull up straight in front of your nose...watching the tail of the trailer. When the tail is pointed where you want it, go back into reverse while turning the wheel the same way you were turning before the pull up.

 

Backing takes time. Small wheel movements help tremendously.

Lucky you that your trainer was easy going. Mine was a complete ###### and he kept yelling "cone killer" in my window when I hit the cones. Not just me, but everyone. I finally had to back with different trainers.

Didn't start practicing the alley back until week 4. Passed CDL test first try.

It can happen. When it clicks it clicks.

 

Go back to school and keep trying! You'll get it. The school sounds very professional and the instructors seem patient, take advantage of that. The CDL school I went to the instructors were hot headed and if a guy wasn't grasping something they were not shy about cutting him loose.

 

I always steer towards the problem that's the easiest way to do it. If you see more trailer in your right mirror then the left, turn the wheel right and the trailer should get back under the tractor. It takes practice especially if you e never backed a trailer before.

 

You just have to follow the trailer, and go slow and make the small corrections before your trailer gets to far out of whack.

 

Another idea to essentially stop stressing about these ideas is to find a spot of land that is not level, not even. Try backing straight back on that land. You will find the gravity pulling your trailer out of line. Fighting the trailer with SMALL movements at a time on wheel of your tractor will gently.. relatively speaking horse it back in line.

Some people think of a harbor tug and barge. So the tractor worries the trailer until it's in.

Another way to think of this whole thing is to discard the entire tractor this tractor that tractor something else... just say to yourself that the trailer has a set of front wheels that steers. Essentially the axle under the 5th wheel. Ignore the other 2, 3 or however many extra axles you do have on the tractor. YOU are the steer tires.

Once in a great while when confronted with a really tight area and you are ready to lose it and go postal, stop a sec, disconnect from the trailer completely and then get back into it sideways in a full jack angle of 90 degrees. Make #### sure your future depends on this.. make #### sure your king pin is not going to jump the 5th wheel doing this GENTLY.