Prime Trainers - Backing

Well... there is another way to park a rig.

Watch another truck pull out of a parking spot. When you analyze the track that the truck followed, you'll see that NO driver repeats the kind of jack-knife motion that ol' Safety Ken advocates in his spiel.

Leaving a parking spot: You pull straight forward until the tandems are within a few feet of the front of the next truck in the direction of your intended turn (wait until they're even if possible,) start your turn (not el locked-up-o to the el stop-o) so you don't swing to the point of hitting the truck on the opposite side, and gradually tightening the turn until you are perpendicular to the parking spot. Right?

So... why not just reverse that action?

Start perpendicular to the parking slot (lots of room) back into a fairly tight turn to get the trailer swinging, ease off as the back end of the trailer is curving around, judge your track so you end up parallel to the trucks on either side of you with your steers nearly straight as you move across the plane that defines the near end of the parking slot. Voila!

 

I see guys park like that all the time. I don't think it would work for me. Too hard to judge where the back of the trailer's gonna end up. Much prefer to have it (my tail) as close to the hole as possible and just work the tandems around the truck on that side.

 

Or better yet.... Find a pull through lol never back if ya don't have to. Especially with something hanging off the back of the trailer....

 

I have not taken the instructor course, but I did start training over the summer. If you are looking for a Prime protocol for backing, I don't think you'll get what you are looking for. I've never come across anything resembling a company wide "method" for backing a semi. Prime has a unique training program that puts students in real world situations, hauling real loads. They trust their Instructors/Trainers to impart certain information according to a reasonable schedule.

In my case, I had very little practice backing while with my instructor (driving on a permit) but with the bit I had and practice on the pad, I passed my skills and road test and got my CDL.

I had a different trainer and he, as well as my instructor, did a great job offering their inputs on methodology and such. However, I did not really learn how to back a semi until I started having to do it on my own with no spotter. To this day, while informed by my teachers' insights, I back my truck with what works for me.

CRE's video is probably more of an attempt at CYA than an actual company-wide method of backing: "Yes sir, we have a backing training video on file." There is no one, absolute way to back. There are too many different drivers and different situations to be covered under some blanket method.

Anyhow, my two bucks. Inflation, you know?

 

As long as its in here without hitting anything, that's all that counts

 

Ultimately, yes. But as a professional truck driver, I expect of myself to get it in the hole, without hitting anything... in a timely manner.

 

It's really not a race, and being it is simply a instructional video, of course it is going to take longer.
I myself would rather have somebody take more time that what somebody else feels is needed, than have my hood.or mirror taken off.
There is more than one way to skin a cat, and nothing wrong with this way.
Of course we all have our way of doing things, and our way is the right way.
The only negative is that you scrub your tires more. But so do tight forward and u turns.