My advice on backing

My brain set is "steer to the side you don't want the trailer to go", then just do the adjustments needed.

Bobby thanks for the great post and THANK YOU for your services. My son is in the the Army and how I so honor these guys.

 

I would make a terrible instructor… I just back up. No clue what my hands are doing on the wheel. I just know my end goal, and make it happen.

 

Same here.Back in the day while going to school I still couldn't back the best but enough to get my cdl.The more ways the instructor told me how to back the more harder it was.Too much over thinking and wanting to do it the exact ways I was taught.Then I get to a starter company and must have had a thousand different backs from drivers.Best advcie I can give is listen to only your trainer not all the other drivers because you're going to get so confused.

 

theres some really helpful advice here

 

You tandems are your pivot point. You pay attention to the back of the trailer but watching the back of the trailer with your tandems at the 40ft mark isn't going to get you in the hole. Most of my backing in bull hauling is straight line at the sale barns or close to it. Feedlots are a different story completely. Once I'm halfway lined up with the chute my focus is on the 5 markers running down the back of the trailer and the post on the side of the chute I'm lining up with.

When I have to 45 or 90 in I pay attention to the front axle which is where the trailer is going to pivot get lined up air the rear up and hit the chute focusing on that line of 5 going up the back of the trailer. It gets to be a real cluster backing down some driveways, or 90ing off the gravel with ditches on both sides high enough to do some serious damage to a rig, that's why I pay attention to tandems instead of the back end. There's a farm we pickup at over in Iowa that we have to back off the road to hit the chute. If you're watching the back of your trailer instead of your tandems you're going to call a wrecker out there to tow you out and you'd better be the last truck loading. You will eventually learn why we say tandems not the back end. Worrying about the school bus overhang is important but when you're focusing on the back end and them tandems clip a fender because you were focused on the back end you'll understand. I've seen things like that happen before. That's why I say follo your tandems.

 

The tail is still swinging so it definitely warrants a look but it moves twice as fast as the tandems which will end up causing newbies to over correct making them do the snake even worse on a simple straight back. Like 379exhd I have seen more than once someone focus on the back of a trailer with axles slid and they clip the fender with the tandems. As we've discovered there are many thought processes in accomplishing the same thing, use whichever one gets you in the hole without hitting anything. I learned the bottom of the wheel thing, anymore it's just kind of natural. Even if I start on the bottom of the wheel at some point my hand ends up on top and back on the bottom again so I can't keep track.

On a side note does anyone else intentionally angle back or curve or whatever you want to call it? Even when there's plenty of room to pull straight up and back straight in I almost always pull the tractor and nose of the trailer to the left and curve back to straight as I'm backing.