How much room from dock to front wall

I had one the other day that was 90 feet from dock to curb. I had to back in between two 53' foot trailers pulling a 53, with a sleeper truck. I had 37 feet to spare. I ended up doing a controlled jack knife with 2 spotters. I had to move my tandems 4 times to keep from hitting the next trailer over. ( had to walk the trailer over.) I then had to gently drive over a curb to get my truck strait since there wast enough room to go back and forth to un jack knife it. 45 min later i was in the hole.

I though i was a bad driver until a guy with a day cab took 1:30 to get it in. I even disconnected my tractor to give him more room.

 

I saw a guy at Ralphs in LA hit his reefer on a concrete wall while trying to get into a dock at 90 degree angle. He gave up because it was to tight for him.

 

There's a lot of infrastructure built way before 53' trailers became the norm. Even modern warehouse operations and truck stops will make things much too tight for efficient docking or getting into a parking space. I've seen new warehouses that have PLENTY of room for docking maneuvers, except they decided to park a row of trailers opposite the dock or they are trying to set a Guinness World Record for largest rat's nest with that mountainous stack of pallets (yep, lot's of big rats living in that structure)...

... sure is nice when you make it into a tight dock like that with minimal fuss, but accept the fact that much of the time you will need to have plenty of pull ups and retries to make it.

Look forward to challenging docks. Each one is an experience builder. Take time to get out and look as often as you need to, make sure you don't hit anything, and watch other drivers to see how they do it.

If there is a dirt yard or if you can otherwise see tire tracks, you can often determine how other drivers did it before.

 

A lot of them places were designed for a straight truck when the business was small and new. As business grew so did the trucks. I had quite a few customers where you had to jack knife to fit.

My favorite was in Cincinnati a suit business on a small side street that closed it's doors. Burlington bought their stock out and I got the pleasure of getting it. It had a small straight truck dock with a block wall on both sides. I might of had 6" on both sides. Across the street was a bar and I had to get them to move their cars. I had to use every inch of the sidewalk and miss the bar by inches while jack knifing but I done it. The funny thing was the whole bar come outside and was cheering me on and holding their beers up and stuff.

 

Nothing like having the locals or the warehouse staff taking wagers after you are assigned a door. "I got $20 says he can't do it in 30 minutes!"

 

Lol everyone hates that yard because it's well....Prime. Lol