Tandem placement and turning radius

We should never belittle ANY truckers for trying to learn more about the maneuverability of a CMV whether they have one day of experience or 100 years of experience. It just discourages people from asking questions and trying to learn.

 

I knew the maneuverability of the CMVs I operated before I drove them well enough to have a plaque on the wall at my trucking company with my name on it congratulating me on driving over a million miles without a preventable accident. That's good enough in my book.

Pilots learn more and more about how to fly (the equivalent to the maneuverability of a CMV) planes as they go along too. That's why nobody starts out flying a 747. The law dictates that pilots start out flying small planes (usually cargo planes) and gradually pilots qualify for flying bigger and bigger planes based on their number of flight hours. It might take, say, 20,000 hours of flight time to qualify to fly a 747. Why? Because nobody knows everything about flying when they first start flying them. Same with big rigs.

 

The thread should not be about me. I never wanted this thread to be about me. If you're so amazed that I didn't figure this stuff out in my first week, you ought to start a new thread about me on an appropriate subforum.

I'm not going to take the bait of your 6 troll questions. Let's focus on tandem placement and turning radius. Let's stay on task.

 

I don't remember my trainer ever mentioning that one can tighten the turning radius by sliding the fifth wheel forward. I don't remember the instructors at my trucking school ever mentioning that one can tighten up the turning radius by sliding the fifth wheel forward. I was a trainer for 2 and a half years, and I had a list of trucking concepts that I was supposed to teach my students. I was supposed to teach all my students how to slide the fifth wheel. I taught all my students how to slide the fifth wheel. I told my students that sliding the fifth wheel forward will take weight off the drives. And I taught my students that sliding the fifth wheel backward would take weight off the steers. However, teaching my students that sliding the fifth wheel forward would tighten the turning radius around obstacles was definitely NOT on the list (neither was sliding the tandems forward to tighten the turning radius).

Nobody taught me how sliding the fifth wheel forward would help tighten up the turning radius. I deduced how sliding the fifth wheel forward could help tighten up turning radius in post #128.

Just out of curiosity, have any of you ever slid the fifth wheel forward just to tighten the turning radius around an obstacle?

 

No. That thread is for questions from new drivers. A driver with 7 years of experience is not a new driver.

Let's stay on task.