My Experiences so far have all resulted in frustration and me taking a temporary break

LOL 5 pages about nothing really. Just back that thing into the spot.This way or another.When I started I couldn't do straight line backing and nobody trained me. First 6 months I was getting nervous half an hour to the destination wondering what the backing will be like.Yet I survived and still drive.

 

I generally don't quote a comment like yours all that much. However in a few words you nailed it. Nailed it square on the head. There is no way a driver will last long out there with half of their attention at home. It gets considerably harder as a newbie too. As far as the backing I agree with you as well as with what @diesel drinker just posted. Good job!

 

I was given a specific set of instructions on how to set up and accomplish a alley dock with a day cab, with tandems all the way back. I used those instructions successfully for the most part.

Since I got in a sleeper cab truck, those instructions don't work so well, due to turning radius differences. I have long since forgotten the instruction set.

HOWEVER, I think I have a basic learners' instruction set that will work for almost any alley dock that doesn't have issues like curbs, parked cars, or fire hydrants.

I'd like older drivers to think about their experiences and tell me if this makes sense to you. It's what I already do, but I've never written it down, and I'd like input if you think I'm forgetting something that I'm doing on autopilot.

Instructions for a simple 90 degree driver-side alley dock of a standard box truck.

This is not meant to be a cookie-cutter solution. It's meant to be a starting point.

1. Start with your tandems all the way back.
2. Pull up six feet away from the line of parked trucks, trailers, or the curb, and parallel to them.
3. Pull forward so that the back of your rear tandem tire is six feet past the dock parking space you want to fit into.
4. Crank the wheel as hard right as you can, then start backing. (Watch your nose!)
5. When your tractor is at 90 degrees to your trailer, stop.
6. Look at the angle <X> of the trailer where it is, compared to where it was when you were parallel.
7. Correct your steering and maintain the tractor at 90 degrees to the trailer as you continue backing.
8. Watch the angle of the trailer compared to the space you are trying to back into.
9. When your trailer is <X> degrees short of being into the space you want, stop the truck.
10. Turn the wheel as hard left as you can to straighten the tractor and slide into the hole.

Now, I didn't use any specific numbers for angles, because the angles are heavily dependent on the tractor and trailer. That variable <X> though, it is important. Your truck will straighten to 180 degrees just as fast as it bent to 90 degrees.

If it took you 30 degrees of trailer rotation to get your truck bent to 90 degrees with the wheel turned hard right, then it will take 30 degrees to make it straight again with the wheel turned hard left. That means that you will have 30 degrees of rotation you will make with the tractor turned 90 degrees to the trailer.

If you try this, and you find that your trailer is too far in one direction or another, change your starting point of the tandems accordingly, and try it again.

The key here is that your tractor will get from 180 degrees to 90 degrees compared to the trailer with the same speed as it gets from 90 degrees back to 180.

When you start the maneuver, your trailer will move backwards slower and slower compared to the motion of the tractor until the tractor is at 90 degrees to the trailer, then the backward movement of the trailer will stop, and the tandems will simply rotate as the tractor moves. When you start to straighten back out, the motion will be the opposite, the trailer slowly going from unmoving compared to the tractor to moving just as fast as the tractor when you are straight line backing into the dock.

What the last paragraph means in Real Life is that when you are ready to straighten the tractor in the final part of the maneuver, the tandems will still be a little out of line with the dock. If you wait until the tandems are even with the dock, you have gone too far back, and either need to start turning sooner, or setup a bit farther forward.

Again. Every truck is different. Every trailer is different. This is simply my best description of what do for a simple alley dock with no complications.

 

I had a lawn service when I was 16 years old so I learned to back up a small trailer from almost the same time I had my drivers license. When I was learning to back up my lawn trailer I was told a very simple concept.

Hold the steering wheel at the bottom center of the wheel. With your hand under the wheel grasping up around it. Now when you back up, if you want the trailer to turn right you simply steer the wheel right if you want to to go left you steer left.

A lot of the problem people have with back up when learning is the hold the steering wheel at the top and that requires you to turn the wheel in the opposite direction of where you want the trailer to go.

Now I don't suggest backing up in real world from the bottom of the steering wheel but to learn it makes it easier. Go find some place to practice that method then eventually it will become second hand nature to you no matter where you hold the wheel.

Now, translating to 53" trailers with a tractor trailer is a bit different than a bumper mounted trailer but the basic concept is the same. Personally, I wouldn't ever practice putting it in a hole at first. Just take a truck & trailer in a big open area and practice driving backwards with it and making turns then getting your self straight. Learn to control where the trailer goes and then you can put it anywhere.

 

6 feet aint bad.

Me? Im bad, why? I'll get half a foot from everyone in the dock row before setting up the trailer hook. I want all the room I can get prior to hitting that fence line opposite the dock row.

Many people are different. For some backing is a mortal terror. Or mountain work or ice or whatever it is that scares them in life. The successful ones over come and get through it to do well.

One tiny whisper in these pages is that apparently there might be trouble at home for the driver. If any of you drivers have trouble at home, you are not free to safely go about whatever it is you require day in and day out with a clear head.

When training someone to back, I generally have all day but within reason. That person has to work it out with a minimum of yelling on my part. If they breakdown and get frusterated, off track or get emotional I'll put it in there and call it a day until next time. Back in the wheel they go for backing the next time.

Keep in mind if someone is overtired you can have 20 docks with nothing at all and 10 acres to pick one and plant it and you will see that someone is unable to do it. I had that happen to me a few times. Being tired erases the upper brain functions needed to work out the angles.

It would be better if schools will quit playing in gravel pits. And move to any number of abandoned industry locations with actual docks and even better at least two rotting trailers with a free dock in the middle to back into. It's way better to do that and a few rubs or scrapes will just be par for the course. A pair of traffic cones is not a valid docking.

However.

I leave you with this thought. The docking from hell. In Dumas Texas there is a meat plant west and south of the downtown. They said to load cow hide I have to go to "That dock, bossman points to it deep inside the building array away from all other docks.)

That dock was behind approx 20 plus rail cars set out at random, half covered in flies. I had to go between all those cars, work around a large circle constantly working towards that dock way in the side wall. The big problem was all the windows need to be tight shut. Or you have a thousand flies for a week. (A hour with two bug bombs will take care of that... if it does not kill you first) and a month of killing babies in that cab.

I only had taken one load like that out of there with a flatbed. And that was all I could care to take out of there. Sometimes big strong truckers like me (Ya right...) weep and think of home and mama when faced with "Put it in that door"

 

A 53 is a sweetheart to back. You can have a thousand foot trailer and THAT one will be even easier. Just takes a wee bit longer for your steering inputs to take hold back there.

It's the little 20 foot boxes or the shorter trailers like you describe that aggravates me. I once tried to position a log splitter with a el camino (Such hubris...) and ended up plopping the #### thing right there anyway far from the wood pile. (Serves me right....)

 

I've actually found American Truck Simulator to be helpful. It might seem silly to use a game, and there's no replacing actual wheel time, but being able to view overhead what's going on with the trailer helped quite a bit. We've only started backing in school this week and from the beginning I've been able to put it in the box, usually with only a single pull up and from 90 degrees (not allowed a setup).

 

Your description of how to do the alley dock must be how it's taught in school. Every trainee I had did it this way and I would let them practice backing that way without comment for a few times. Then I would either break out the remote controlled truck and show them different ways to accomplish it, because often you are faced with situations that are too tight in truck stops and customers.

I would have them pull forward along the line of trucks or trailers, then when the drives were at the far side of the hole crank hard right (without stopping). Then about the time the tractor is parallel to the hole crank hard left until the truck is perpendicular to the line of the hole then go straight forward. Stop when you have a fairly shallow angle between truck and trailer. You should have at least 10' from any line of obstacles on your right.

Now start back the tractor STRAIGHT BACK, in a line perpendicular to the hole. The trailer will naturally start to "fall off" towards the hole. When you see the trailer in position to describe a wide arc into the hole turn your wheel to the left to keep the angle between truck and trailer. I call this "following it".

Using that wide arc is essential for anyone pulling a spread axle. Jacknife turns will tear your trailer tires up in a hurry and the turning radius can be unpredictable if the ground is uneven. Sometimes it will turn on the front axle, then suddenly the back axle wants to be the pivot point. By trying to get no more than a 45° angle you get a more predictable slide and save your tread. Even with tandems you put a lot of wear on trailer tires.

With my job I get a chance to drive a wide variety of truck and trailer combinations. There are trailers that present a real challenge, because they are spread axles with a short distance to the rear axle, like 30' or less. Add a 10' spread and it's a rodeo.

 

This demonstrated the fall off and follow it technique I described.

 

It's NOT silly. Not at all.

When the I-486's were the rage, simulator games came with a two inch manual book and I say a few hundred commands. One of which is a rather simplified simulation of a F-117 in those days without giving away any important secrets of course such as it's mathematical surfacing designed to reflect a certain way all incoming radar.

Anyway here i am over Frankfort Am Main trying to penetrate west to detonate a bridge on the Elbe in the face of a oncoming Soviet Tank Army so goes the overall mission problem. I did not do well because I had lost track of where the Soviet A-50 mainstay was (Their version of our Awacs) with escort of fulcrums. Needless to say that bridge stayed intact. Because I came over a small ridge and there it was. There I was caught like a kid with hand in a cookie jar.

Fast forward to trucking simulators. At one time I laughed them off, but I bought a early version and gave it a go. Turned out the backing sitaution with mirrors, dock, trailer etc in the three D world is pretty much perfect as far as I am concerned within what a game maker could do with it. I strongly encourage anyone to try it if they havent already.

Today's simulators have buried that two inch thick manual into the game in a variety of ways they don't have too many formal simulator games as they used to, most people do not have the time or patience to plan for and arrange then fly a Dulles to Beijing over the pole with a 747-400 which is roughly about 12 hours of actual time. Most people just wanna play now and be rewarded quickly.

I will tell you that backing a big truck in the game sim is pretty good. Driving in the game world traffic? Not so much. If I wanted to hit myself over the head and hurt myself I'll do it with a big truck in downtown Houston thank you very much. It has a way to go.

I think that's enough for here. It's not silly at all. Now I caution gamers not to think just because they did something in game does not always mean they should be trying it in the real world. I don't know of any good 747 simulators with billion dollar costs to see if I have what it takes (I don't) so It's best that it stays here with just a illusion.

Trucking is different. I am all over this thing. I think it will help some in school very well.