Navigating Turns

Take your time. Pay attention to your mirrors, and watch for cars trying to squeeze around you, and stuff you may hit. SLOW DOWN if you need to, and going slowly gives you the option to STOP when you see some idiot trying to squeeze through a space that won't be there in a second or so, as you complete your turn. If you are stopped when he hits you, you are better off, and if you stop and the car decides he wants to drive on the sidewalk, that's his problem.
Many urban city streets are not set up properly for the longer trucks on the road, now.

 

Tell your mentor to #### before you kick his little out of shape pissant butt.

 

Easy. Just use one of these curb cushions.

 

Your mentor is a big mo(ron) when it comes to teaching even if he or she is the best driver in history. All students take turns too wide and if they don't, I tell them too swing wider. I want them clearing corners not taking out mamas pushing strollers!

I do point out to the student after a while, that they need to stop watching the nose and watch how the trailer is tracking. Then they see how wide they are and start correcting all by themselves.

Every turn and tandem setup is different so there is no magical formula.

Hang in there, you can go too wide as many times as you like but you can only go too close once.

You can go down a mountain too slow as many times as you like, you can go too fast only once.

If you are making your mistakes on the safe side, you are doing fine.

 

Gotta love those curb cushions!!! If they are the right size you don't even get their paint on your trailer!

 

As others have said it is better to be to wide then hitting someone or something. I don't know if this will help you, But when I was training my instructor gave me the following basic guideline. When turning at an intersection you should use 3 and a half lanes. ( IE: 1.5 lanes before you turn on to a street with 2 available lanes ) This will all depend on how the intersection is laid out as well as how long your combination is etc.

 

Here is a link to a YouTube video. Put "Truck right turn" in the search box on YouTube, and you can find others.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUuykWghNTk