backing help for a newby

ok after 15 years of doing this and training probably 150 or 200 people includeing my wife and a bunch of vo tech students i have the magic answer you are looking for and every one that has posted has said it. PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. its 10% knowledge and 90% practice and some one else said it one of these days when ever that will be for you is different for every one it will click and become secound nature and you will understand why its so hard to teach some one how to back up. its more of a feel as people said and also the old words come back to me if you realize you need to correct its to late stop and start over its to late to recover from that. and along the way you will learn some tricks about tight spot backing with a 53 ft trailer like seting your tandems to free them so they can slide back and forth and you can use them to your advantage to slide it in to a tight spot where the over swing will get you in trouble but thats another story. just keep practiceing and it will come to you.

 

I've always been pretty good with backing but I can't nail it in one shot every time. Pull-ups are free, go-arounds are free take as many as you need. Hitting someones truck once will cost you.

CB off. In fact If I even have it on, I shut the darn thing off before I pull into the t/s.
Window down, flashers on.
Do your setup. This is the key. A poor setup and you'll be working harder to get it in.
Like everyone else has mentioned GOAL it.
Then get 'er done.
If it don't look right, do a pull-up or a go-around or find another spot. It's tough at some of these places and the car sized "pot holes" don't help none either. I love it when you have a narrow hole and everyone is parked like a mass-free-for-all and nobody is even or in their lines.

Oh and try to avoid parking on the end. If you have no choice, nose it in so your trailer is sticking out on the corner.

 

In my short time out on the road & in truck driving school, I found out that backing-up is by far the most difficult part of driving a truck. In my school, I couldn't straight-line back for nothing, but on the 9th or 10th day, it "clicked" like so many of you had said. The 45 & 90 degree were a little bit harder. Unfortunately, I had a VERY impatient trainer just as MHX, MyCorky, & haze1 said they had. He told me it took him about a year before he got real good at backing. I thought trainers were supposed to "train" new people. I was already nervous & frustrated on learning how to back-up, let alone learn a whole new job. His impatience only amplified my frustration & therefore I couldn't concentrate & learn as quickly as I would have if I had a better trainer. Not only that, he didn't let me practice or work with me near as much as he could have. Sometimes I think he forgot that I was a trainee & not a team driver. The only thing I agreed with him on was "don't ever practice backing-up at a crowded & cramped truck stop", as truck stops will probably be the most tightest spots you will have to back in to. The only advise I have learned that may help people is try to back as far in to the hole as possible, of course G.O.A.L. if your not sure, then the visibility will be better & depending on the dock your at, you can keep doing pull-ups & eventually do a straight-line-back. I personally hated backing-up at night the most, it's VERY hard to see anything. Be extra careful backing-up while it is dark. I had a few very close calls.

 

dan j as I put in an article quite awhile ago here, you have the best approach there is,get that angle dangle while driving forward,try to imagine where you want that rear of the trailer to be, stay as close to the front of the other trailers you can,swing out and get the angle while driving forward,after a few times and a good eye you will amaze yourself how easy it is,then back up and follow it around and you'll have room to spare,especially at grocery warehouses. One of the best things i can offer you is while you are sitting in your truck,in a truckstop or anywhere,watch all the other drivers,backing and how they do it, the good ones don't need a suiside knob and the front wheels aimed right and left and all over the parking lot,use short concise moves,and most of all get that angle dangle right from the start while pulling forward, you won't waste alot of pavement and energy this way. best of luck,learned from the old guys and now i am one myself. In all my 40 yrs out here and helping people back up many many times,most said to me,"Gee that was so easy",Why didn't the school show me that, maybe the teacher didn't want you to be as good as he was,I don't really know why. But it works and is alot easier. If you can't see the other side of your trailer,keep pulling up until you can,DONOT TAKE A CHANCE AND RUN SOMEONE OVER OR THEIR TRUCK. Get out and look as often as you have to too,to be safe.

 

Two good tips for backing into tight docks: 1) If you have little room to pull forward, to avoid rolling tractor over curb or other obstruction, I have on occasion moved my tandems all the way forward to shorten wheelbase and tighten turning radius...but beware of greater trailer swing! Get out and look! Works for me and I don't knock tractor's front end out of alignment. 2) If you have a very tight dock with trailers on left and right, I will set-up back so my trailer tail is centered in my dock, then I will back slowly until my trailer is parallel to dock, then pull forward a few feet 2 or 3 times to get the tractor back under the trailer, then it's just a straight-back into dock. My experience every back is different every day. Once you get the hang of it, you will just naturally go with the flow. For instance, today I had a pick-up at a Wisconsin dairy on a back country road. It took me about 5 seconds to size-up what I needed to do. First I turned left to face dock, backed-up then turned to head out driveway, then blind backed around parked cars into dock. Good luck and be safe.

 

I agree with Boilermaker. Practice don't make perfect, Practice will prefect it. I had trouble in backing too but the more I did it on my own the better I felt about it. I was in some pretty tight places and with some help of other drivers I did it. There are good drivers out there that belive me they know a new one. Some will be more than glad to help you, they all have been there when they started out. Good Luck, Keep working on it.

 

Brickman-I believe in your theory about the toy truck..I did the same thing when I didn't understand what to do. It all made sense once you saw it before your own eyes

 

just a suggestion! Is there a way we can have all the backing info put on the same page so to speak,as a newbee could lookup backing and see all of our input all at once as to backing a truck and trailer. Maybe like by items,like all about grocery warehouse hints like lumpers and anything to do with grocery warehouses. You know,every so often update the categories and have them so we can find out all the info so far to date,with all the posts and answers in categories. If I were a newbee that would help me immensely,aside from us trucker veterans repeating the whole thing again to the same questions.