Crooked dock placement

That's because when you look at the passenger mirror you are straight up in the seat and you turn your head to the right. When backing using the driver's mirror we tend to lean our head over rather than just turning our head. It simply causes a change in the angle perception.

 

Look at the bump blocks on trailer..if they're reasonably close to the bump blocks on dock it's good

 

I'll buy that.

 

I got a image in my photo book where a dock was set into a angle of a building itself. The unpainted fresh concrete slab was a trapezoid with the square plate lines having no meaning other than of themselves. Creating a optical illusion that made it impossible to back square.

I needed that last little two feet and thump the drive steer falls a foot and few inches down to the frame off the edge. I was hoping the axle will allow it to hang free on the right steer. But it's not that kind of suspension.

Wonderful. And then the drive was pinched by front corner of trailer.

I thought about it carefully. Called for a tow. Told it will be a hour. Company was disappointed, but I told them if you saw this space.... (Orly? We'll see...)

But being onery and hating the converstation with the boss that comes from calling for a tow formally I needed out of that hole.

I dropped clutch and added interlock fast and pulled power hard. She lurched and went into the sky with a big boom hood latches failed and came back down. I was free. What's the damage? Well there is a weather gaurd strip of material behind the steer inside the fender well that got pinched and then torn clean out of it's bolts, all 3 feet of it. That was about the worst of it and it did line the trailer up thankfully. And canceled the tow.

I was never sent back. It's unfortunate because it has possibilites.

 

I backed up to this dock and it looked like it was crooked. When I told the dock foreman this he said no, the driver was crooked. I thought that was funny.

The moral of the story is to back up as close to the dock as you can (hopefully with doors open and tandems slid back) and then do the GOAL thing. Check where your bumper is in relation to the dock, then pull forward with the intention of straightening out to align yourself with the dock.

With your tandems to the rear you'll need a considerable distance to align your trailer to the dock. It's confusing to use the right side mirror in attempting align with the dock so don't.

If no objects are complicating your backing then you should only rely on the driver side mirror to aid you in backing straight. If you are straight on with the dock (GOAL), continue backing until bump the dock. Do this as slowly and as gently as you can. Leave about four inches between the dock plate and the rear of your trailer. This allows for the dock platform to be raised and positioned into place properly.

And make of any pre-existing damage or post-loading damage that may have occurred. Some of these forklift drivers can be careless.

 

No room for crooked sometimes, I always just look to see if I have equal distances of corners of trailer in my mirrors.

 

It's not you or your mirrors...it's that dimwit that painted the lines on the ground....drivers side drifts left, passenger side drifts right.....but after he had a couple brews,he straightened out!

 

although i cannot recall a delivery such as you put up a picture of, i can recall docking a 28' pup trailer in between 2, 53's.....

lol,,,glad i wasn't a "big guy"........

 

Oh thats nothing. Try to back one that tight OVER an active train track where every 5 minutes a 3-4 car train would fly by at about 50mph. You got about 4-5 seconds of warning when the lights started flashing. I was actually terrified that day.

 

Because you are sitting close to the driver side mirror and far from the passenger side mirror, there is an optical illusion when you are perfectly straight in a dock door. You see the truest view by looking out the passenger side mirror and seeing if the trailer rail is parallel with the painted line on the ground. When you are perfectly straight in the door and you look in the driver side mirror it will appear like the nose of the trailer, on the driver side, is pushed slightly toward the passenger side.

If you try to make the trailer parallel to the painted line on the ground as viewed in the driver side mirror you will actually put the nose of the trailer closer to the driver side line than the passenger side line.

Just judge if you are straight in a parking spot or doc door by looking in the passenger side mirror.