Backing and turns

Practice, practice.

 

*sigh* Voodoo.

There. I said it.

 

The only stupid question is a question that wasn't asked. Like strollinruss said, practice practice and also check out some videos on YouTube. Before I got my CDL I didn't know how or what double clutch was. Instructor would get upset with me because I wasnt doing it correctly but hell I've never drove a stick before, went home watch some videos online and came back the next day and showed out! lol

Backing takes time.

 

There's some video app people use on their X-box or something that works well, so they post.

 

Try Euro trucker. It's very realistic trucking simulation game. I used it for a while to test out how realistic 90's and alley docks were, but in reality it just take real practice.

And don't ever let people rush you out there. You can sink it in the hole every time if you set up correctly and go slow enough and usually the same impatient people waiting for you to dock will take twice as long themselves.

 

Have you heard of YouTube? Watch it until you understand what you are trying to do. Then practice it.

 

Are you playing from inside the cab or overhead? f you're playing from overhead view you're experience on the game is null and void. Also, realize that the game is the push of a button or the move of a joystick to turn the wheels. In real life you have to manually crank that wheel over, sometimes a significant distance, to get the truck to do what you want.

Keep in mind also that chances are the tractor you are sitting in is probably longer than the one in the game. This means that you will have to pull further into intersections to make a turn without curbing it.

Finally, stop thinking that you "know" how to do it because of the game. Put everything out of your mind from the game and LISTEN to your INSTRUCTOR.

Good Luck

 

When alley docking, learn to anticipate where the trailer is going to be about 6 seconds down the road, if you continue backing at that speed, and with the wheel cranked at that specific angle without moving it back and forth. This will teach you when to act , on the second important concept; learning to chase the trailer around with your tractor, to begin straight backing into the dock.

Also, when backing into a dock or a space, setup is everything. If you've got a 53' trailer and you want to back into a space, you would drive up to the space you want to back into, and then pass up that space by about three space lengths, each space length being about 8 - 10 feet, or the width of a tractor. Assuming you pass it on your right (passenger side), cut it hard to the left, and when you feel like your TRACTOR is directly in front of the space, you need to get your trailer in the right place--you then cut the wheel hard to the right, and keep driving straight, away from the space. You should be perfectly lined up with your back trailer tandem lined up right into the space you intended to back into. From there, it's all straight backing.

We never have to 90 degree alley dock in real life. Except last week, I got stuck in the Santa Cruz mountains on a no truck route, at 2:30am, thanks to mudslides. I was in a gasoline truck and trailer, set of doubles if you will. Had to get the police out there to help me, and we had to do a 90 degree blind side alley dock into somebody's driveway, on a horrendous mountain road--this was with a set of doubles basically, so it was completely different. took about 30 minutes of using pull-ups to get in there, and the 90 degrees was more of an acute angle at 120 degrees. Most difficult thing I've ever done