Backing straight truck up

Sounds like your WAY oversteering.

To learn TO BACK A STRAIGHT TRUCK try this:

Find yourself a closed big parking lot like mall or something.

Find a LONG STRAIGHT LINE like maybe the center painted line where 2 cars would nose to nose in a long row of cars. Drive straight up on the line from the end of the row putting your LEFT side tires on the line. Go all the way to the end so you have the maximum amount of line behind you.

Put it in reverse. Dont move yet. When you do move GO SLOW. No more than a very slow walk. Look at the line extending way out behind you. Put 1 hand at the top center of the wheel. (Hopefully your wheels are straight from when you pulled onto the line.)

Now start moving back, do not turn the wheel. Chances are your not 100% perfectly straight on top of the line. Watch your back tire. It will either be getting closer to of farther away from the line. You want that tire ON the line right? As you see which way the line is going to move you move your hand toward the direction you want the truck to go in order to get back onto the moving line. (Think of the line as moving, not your truck. The truck is stationary, the line is what's moving... (DO NOT FORGET that as the line moves so do all the light poles and any cars parked there move at the same time (they are after all attached to the moving line by the parking lot surface) and if you forget this they will come up and hit your truck!.. I hate it what that happens!)

Now this is important... that first time you move your hand from the top of the wheel (your moving the wheel, your hand does not change its location on the wheel until way later in the lesson) so, the first time you move the wheel, ONLY move it 1/4 turn. In other words your hand goes from clock position 12 to either 3 or 9 ONLY.

Maintain your SLOW speed and WAIT AND WATCH. Give it time. The line WILL move, be patient. As you see the line start to move when your about 1/2 way to where you think you want the tire to really be, move your hand back to 12 and wait and watch. If it looks like your going to go passed the line move the wheel to the other (3 or 9) than you did the first time for just a couple seconds then back to 12. And keep waiting and watching.

If you can keep it on the line then keep going back giving these LITTLE inputs and wait and watch. if your all out of wack then pull up, get back on the line and start over.

Don't do this more than about 5-10 minutes at a time. Then take a break. Make a lap of the parking lot, have a smoke or whatever you do. Clear your head and then go back and go again.

After a few sessions of that you'll be able to back the full length of the line pretty easily. Once you can go at least a couple hundred feet like that SLOW and never get more than a 1/2 foot or so off the line on either side then you can speed up SLIGHTLY and go again. The faster you go the less input you give as the line will be responding even faster.

Once you can follow the line at the speed that you feel you want/need to be going find yourself a traffic cone or something else you can easily see that can take being run over and not damage it or your truck.

Put the cone 100 or so feet pretty much straight behind the left corner of your truck (no lines on the road to follow now) and back up to the cone. Go slow, small inputs, wait and watch.

Same deal as you get better and better you can speed up some.

Move the cone out to 200' then 300'

Then put the cone back at 100' but offset 10-15 feet to the left, (the side where you can still see it in the mirror.) Back up to it. Same process always. Move slow, small inputs, wait and watch. As you get better increase speed some.

Once you get that move the cone to 50' back and 10-15' offset. Then 25' back 10-15' offset. Lastly try 25' back and 25' offset. As you do these maneuvers you'll have to start turning the wheel passed 3 and 9. As you do that start using both hands and keep them more or less in the 10 and 2 position while you move the wheel and your hands remain more or less stationary in position. But always remember "small inputs, wait and watch"

Once you have done all of that and your comfortable moving off to the left, +the side you can see) you can have some real fun by moving the cone 100' back and 4' to the right ... Of the left side of your truck.. what? That's pretty much dead center behind you. Back up and put the cone right at your left rear corner.

Now for even more fun, shorten it to 50' back. You might not even be able to see it at first until the truck starts to move and you provide input.

Next your going to go from the right rear corner out 10-15' cone 100' back, just like you did on the driver side. Keep moving the cone in the same increments as you did for the left corner.

You'll finish all that by puting the cone 50' behind and center of your truck and park with the cone at the right rear corner.

Lastly... And this is HYPER IMPORTANT. As your backing up every 5-10 seconds take a quick look out the other mirror and check your nose to be sure your not about to hit something. (The more you manipulate the wheel (the harder you turn it) the more the nose starts to swing around) DO NOT make any steering corrections based on what you see in those checks. Hit the brakes and stop if you need to but (IN THE BEGINING) ONLY make your steering adjustments based on what you see in your primary mirror for the exercise.

You MUST, FROM THE START incorporate the habit of making these mirror and nose checks as you back up. If you do not do that from the start your going to be running over everything for 2 miles around you for the rest of your career.

Once your about 3/4 of the way through this process you can begin to make corrections based on what you see in the "other mirror" when you do, make it your primary and keep a quick check going on in the other.

You'll get to the point that your able to swap mirrors back and forth as you feel the need but always try to keep from jumping back and forth with your primary mirror and always resist making a change in the secondary mirror. Not doing that messes up even well seasoned drivers all the time.

Also, always remember GOAL. If you look your ocassionaly see a sticker on the top of a truck mirror that says that. It means "When you have ANY doubt, GET OUT AND LOOK". If you need to GOAL 50 times in a single backing operation do it. That's going to take way less time and cost way less money than backing into something. And when you GOAL don't forget to SET THE BRAKE.!

Take 3 or 4 days to do that entire process and by the end of the week you'll be backing circles around some of the older drivers, and hopefully be safer at it too.

Good luck, safe driving... And safe backing!

 

.Ha it is funny how everyone is giving advice on how to back a trailer up when the asker is driving a straight truck. Cannot really blame anyone though, it is just unnatural that someone would ask how to back a truck without a trailer.

Practice is the only way you are going to get good at this

 

Everyone? I saw immediately he was talking about a straight truck and addressed that. I never even mentioned "trailer" once.

I guess it could be that my answer was to long. Or to detailed. Or to precise....

Whatever, it does work very well for a straight truck. Backing with a trailer requires a different set of training instructions.

 

I did not read your post sir. But honestly though seeing as how it went for pages and pages I have no idea how you could describe backing with that many words Unless there was a trailer involved!

 

How do you back up a car?

 

Absolutely NOT. HE11, every day I see people that can't even back up a compact car, much less a straight truck using mirrors...

For that matter some people can't even drive correctly forward much less backwards... LOL.!