backing and boxing a flatbed

always keep an eye on the tandems. Thats one! lol

 

Is that some driving school lingo? What does that mean?

 

Oh, good, it's not just me.

 

boxing?????

 

haha i thought i was missing something also

 

Well, if you're going to be boxing with a flatbed, my advice would be heavily padded gloves. Even though it's not liable to punch you back, it could win simply by being made of steel or aluminum. Other than that, the only bit of advice I can give to you is the "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" quote from Muhammed Ali.

As for backing.. practice, practice, practice. It's the only way you're going to get it down. As stated above, different axle configurations will act different when you're backing them. If you're backing a spread axle trailer, you generally want to avoid making too tight of turns, because that does a really good job of tearing the tires up.

 

like bellydumber said keep an eye on tandems, when you drive in towards the area that you want to reverse into line the trailer up so the tandems are already in position to start reversing, then stop for a minute and get a mental picture of how / what imaginary line you are going to reverse on, then put it in reverse and do not stop reversing until you are close to where you need to park. if you stop during reversing it will be harder. this will sound stupid but i have always even when reversing roadtrains and bdoubles worked out exactly where all obsticals are and where i need to turn the steering wheel before i even take my foot off the clutch, then in one movement reverse pretty much to where i need to go, but usally have to shuffle a bit to get exactly in the correct spot. scan the area for obsticles and get it right in your head before you start reversing