Difficult backing with flatbedding ?

Im not offended by any means lol im just surprised to see people in general think flatbed drivers can't back up, i've heard it many times before...
Also you mentioned TMC drivers, you need to know that they are a beginner company like swift and werner and many others, lots of those drivers come straight out of school.

Anyhow, i'm not trying to argue, everyone is entitled to their own opinion

 

i'm not going to argue. i'm one of them most flat bedders.

give me a dump truck and pup, or end dump. i'll knock it out of the park on ANY type of backing.

put me in some type of tight angle backing. with a flat. sometimes she slides right in. and sometimes she'll fight me.

 

We just bought 2 step decks with a spread axel and I've got one of them. Its going to be my trailer 50% of the time. I'm bad at backing, I oversteer and I only go to a dock once a week at most. The one shipper where I go to a dock, are really great, they help guide me in and get a chuckle in the process. But they genuinely like me and have me skip the lines or open a different dock section so they can load me ahead of the vans.

But I'm still learning about backing, I often over steer and I try to watch other drivers back in to learn. One of my biggest problems is when I finally get it straight, I can never judge how close I am to the dock. I ram it every time or stop a foot away when I walk up to check how close I am. Is there a trick that I'm missing?

Also now that I have the spread axel, I'm mostly moving crane fall off but how is backing a spread axel different than backing a normal trailer?

 

Flat bed varies ( unloading / loading ) locations . That's why, I suggest flat bed as a first company. You do everything weird to a BIG fleet hauler ( us xpress, prime, CRST those crap companies ). Sets you perfectly for future jobs after experience


You have a skill set secure a load. you have knowledge of wide varies of backing up, you have appointment times could be critical important, ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC.........







ETA: Trucking is not easy. far removed from flatbed after 7 years, those flatbedding days still come to me daily.I am still a rookie

It's not paying "dues" it's common sense. secure your crap and don't back over crap!

 

I did flatbedding and that was the worst 3 months of my life,lol.Anyway I never had to back in to anydocks but had to back out.Alot of the customers I had to pull in and they would unload me outside like shingles.Can't remember all I hauled it was long ago but I do remember I hated it.Flatbedders work hard and I have respect for all you guys.I'll stick to the easy work,van and reefer,lol.

 

Yeah no doubt bumping docks is different. I learned that later on! HAHHaaaa. Is it hard? yes/no Do i do it now? Yes.

It's trucking explore everything

call me goofy whatever, backing up anything is fun and getting paid. takes me 1 or 50 attempts. it's fun and i don't care. that 51 attempts just say forget it. let the yard jockey do it

 

Every job has it's challenges. Like backing up this beast daily.

 

Lol ...we are not sensitive ...we are egotistical! Lol for the new to spread guys ...remember your pivot point is the FORWARD AXLE! the less you have to drag or push it the better off you (& your tires) will be...now for you door slammers...lol in jest of course but keep in mind every correction made while backing a sprwad has the potential to not only change the amount of weight on the pivot point (forward axle) but little nuances such as ground material (asphalt ,gravel, etc) changes the amount of drag applied to said axle.....all of that is a pain with flats the weight issue is even more pronounced with a step

 

If you have a dump valve on a spreads rear axle it cuts backing difficulty by about half.