Well, today I was able to get a new driver on the road to trucking. This guy has actually been driving for 18 months, but he had a few problems with his backing abilities. So we spent the whole day tackling just that.
First what we did was I had him hook our truck to a 53 foot trailer. After we did an extensive pre-trip inspection, I took him to a part of our terminal yard where there were some other trailers.
We drove by a parking spot that was to the left of us. We stopped to check that spot out. What we were looking for was that there was no debris in that spot, no people standing around, no small cars or short trailers parked there. Once we determined that it was an available place to park, we moved forward a little.
Then, when the trailer was about 1/2 way past the parking spot we chose, we pulled away from that spot at about 45 degrees. We straightened our wheel out, moved forward a little more, then headed left again to create a 45 degree angle with our truck to our trailer. Once we looked in our mirror, we realized that the trailer was now aimed for that parking spot. All that was needed to be done was turn the wheel to the right a little (opposite of the way we want the trailer to go) and put the truck in reverse. Then we turn our 4-way flashers on to alert all the other drivers in the area. Just so that we could be sure that everyone knew that we were backing up, we also blew the air horn lightly.
We proceeded to back up. When the trailer was headed towards the parking spot, we now turned the wheel to the left a little to catch the truck up with the trailer, basically following it now. We followed the trailer until we were a little more lined up with the spot and turned the wheel as needed to keep the trailer going in the direction we wanted into the parking space.
There was one time when we lost sight of exactly what we were doing, so we put the truck in neutral, set our brakes and got out of the truck. We walked around to check out the surroundings to be sure that we weren't going to hit anything. Once it was determined that everything was okay, we got back into the truck and finished putting the trailer in the parking place.
That is what is called a 90 degree back.
A 45 degree back is basically set up the same way, except you don't turn left real hard. Instead, you line up the truck and trailer at a 45 degree angle to the parking place you want to get into. We did that and found that it was fairly easy to do that.
Later, we decided to drive around town and work on right and left turns. Traffic was fairly heavy, so some of our right turns had to be set up in what's called a button hook. That is where we are in the right lane and just before the intersection, we hook to the left to cover that lane to be able to ensure that no one gets in our way.
Our trailer is still in the right lane to guard against anyone getting under our trailer causing a pinch effect where we pinch a vehicle between us and the curb. A set up like this is needed when we are turning on a tight right turn or where a car in the lane to the right of us moves too far forward of their stop line. This causes a lot of problems because we have to take up so much space to make these turns, therefore several car drivers get mad because we are in their way.
What they don't realize is, that when they move forward of their lines, they take up the precious little space we already have to work with. Not always can they back up out of our way because someone usually pulls up right behind them. Then they are stuck and at times, we have to sit through a green light in order to let those cars get out of our way. Here again, we are holding up traffic behind us and they look for ways to get around us, therefore causing the possibility of an accident to happen.
After we manuevered around town safely like this, I took my driver to an Industrial area where we could practice backing without any lines on the road, like regular parking spaces. There were virtually no reference points to go by, so we made our own. There were a few sticks on the ground, so we lined them up along the ground to create our own lines to go by. That made things a bit easier.
We set ourselves up like we did in the yard. We did a 90 degree back, a 45 and also a straight back. My driver did wonderful and after a couple of days with me and his training, he graduated and is now on the road to making some great money as a truck driver.
The day went very well. A lot was accomplished and he felt more confident to do his job successfully and safely.
Safety is the number one key in this industry.
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