Need diagrams for backing

Practice is important ONCE YOOU UNDERSTAND. Just randomly doing things is not helping much because you probably won't remember what you did correctly when it accidentally works out like you hoped. This is why I like the "paint-by-numbers" approach. For each type of backing, you do A until a landmark on the truck is at spot1, stop. Then turn the wheel all the way right, and stop. Now turn the wheel all the way left. Now reverse, etc.

Once you have that landmark on your truck put where you begin, and have the pattern of the steering for the setup in your mind and muscle memory, all you have to do is concentrate on the final backing position and steering inputs. On SchneiderJobs YouTube channel has several of these. Here is one. I don't use this exact technique in the video, but a similar one where I start my paint-by-numbers process with my driver-side drive tires at the blind-side front corner of the trailer that will be on my passenger-side when I am backed in between the two trailer of this video.

 

So funny thing. Tonight I was frazzled by the time I hit Waco after running through hard rain, and idiot drivers all day. When I began to back I screwed it up like I'd just started learning. Stopped, went to another hole and slowly did the process focusing on the basics. Still took a couple of pull-ups, but it's a good day because I didn't hit anything.
@Labrador you'll get there, none of us started with a gear shift or steering wheel in our hands, or our mothers would have really hated us

 

I love it when you get to a place and they point you to one of those portable dock ramps sitting in the middle of a gravel lot. No lines, no building. You know you're straight and square when you can't see anything equally in each mirror.

 

Or a perfect parking spot.

 

45'S???? Does ANYBODY actually still run those? Back 40 years ago, 45's were generally the 'old trailers', the ones that had enough corrosion on them that you worried about putting too much of a load in the center. The newer 45's had mostly been extended 3' to make them 48's before I even had a CDL. Even 35 years ago, about 80% of the trailers I was hauling were 53's, and the 48's were then the old rot-box trailers. Even drove a few 57's, and man, all that tail swing was something you really had to watch!

 

My 2 cents, when you enjoy getting out to look to see what you or don't have when backing, then for the most part you'll understand things are possible, gauge you maneuver, you want to execute, "by the space you have at a shipper receiver" is it spacious or tight, this will tell you a 45 will due or ain't no way 90 is the only way.

 

Uh, I was referring to a backing technique. 45s can let you aim your butt at the hole while still having a view of anyone coming up the aisle behind you; whereas a 90 is a bit blind and the trailer can block your view, so potentially some idiot can crowd your space unknowingly. I don’t usually need any pull-ups with 45s, I can course correct while backing; but 90s it still takes me a few tries to cut the wheel right so my ### “swings” into the hole.

If there’s plenty of room, sometimes I try to get fancy with u-turns, loop-the-loops, corkscrews, and barrel rolls so I can proudly straight back into the… wrong door, whoops.

 

Thanks, but this is Bear. Labs are alright I guess… they substitute easily in for my menagerie of labs and tigers and bears, oh my.