End of week 1 at academy. Having trouble(PLEASE Help)

Best advice I can give for that is set your mirrors up properly. When you're getting in the truck, take a look and make sure it's straight. Then when you get in, set your mirrors up to where you prefer. Hopefully that includes seeing the edges of the trailer and whatever is directly behind it.

To give you my preferred mirror settings, I'm parked straight right now and these are taken with the camera directly in front of my face.

Mind ya, these are my preferences. But you can see the sides of the trailer in both mirrors. And keep in mind that the blind side will always look a bit crooked when it's straight. So adjust your brain accordingly.

 

Time between practicing on speak n spell and becoming an English Professor approx 22 years.

Time between practicing on a toy truck and becoming a Professional Truck Driver about 2 weeks.....

 

I skip a lot of the postings so if this has been said already sorry for the repeat.

The first thing to remember is that you are in school. You are not suppose to know how to do this things yet. You are there to learn. Make sure you ask your instructors to explain anything you are having trouble with as it is a great advantage to be there in real time. The toy truck idea is excellent.

The blind and sight side parallel parking moves are part of your CDL test and are not things you do on the job. On the job you may have to move your trailer from one dock door to the next. Say you are in dock 32 and they want you to move to Dock 33 or 31. That is all this maneuver is. Pulling up, angle back, and straighten up. Relax and don't over think it.

The absolute hardest real world backing for me was in downtown Chicago. Backing on a very busy two way highway into a blind dock. No way I was good enough to do the back. Now way. I could do each step however. First pull forward and across the lane of traffic. Wait till traffic clears. Then back and swing out blocking traffic from both directions while continuing to back. Straighten out. Stop. Set brakes. No problem when you slow your heart rate down and just think before you move.

 

I know, isn't it weird? I didn't think I was ready to pass the backing either, but somehow I was able to do it at the last minute. Maybe it's just the forced "gotta do it now" timing.

 

Congrats! Dmv will be easier. Swift makes spots smaller on purpose in their tests.

 

Ok grab some bright paint or caution tape, something easily visible from the cab and on your trailer jack cross braces the should tie together in the center forming an X. Paint or tape there and as you back hard left watch passenger mirror. Align your tape/paint mark with your mudflap now hard right and straighten tractor to trailer, back to where you're 8'-10' of your curb then stop. Hard left again and back up to where your trailer is parallel with curb, hard right and pull forward and you just parallel parked

 

Oh yeah, if you wear polarized sunglasses get rid of em, they throw off your depth perception