I'm Off To Training
Topic 22562 | Page 2
I still poInt in the direction I want the trailer to go in order to remind myself that I need to turn the wheel in the opposite direction. Just moving the trailer a few feet in the wrong direction can have devastating effects when over-steering as you try to correct it. The straight-line for me worked best when I made really small corrections to the wheel.
Our natural instinct is to oversteer or overcorrect. You’ll hear stuff like keeping your elbows close to your body & not moving them past certain points on your body. A trainer once gave me this great term that I still use to this day. He said to use baby steps with almost all maneuvers. It makes it so much easier to correct a slight miscalculation than a big wide turn.
Hope that helps. Our instructors at Prime didn’t like us using YouTube as a means of learning or referencing. They prefer their way of doing things. Good luck going forward & stay safe!!
Yep. Over correcting, and not counter steering were two of my problems and making too big of adjustments was another. I also wasn’t holding the correction long enough and giving the trailer time to move, before going back straight so I kept confusing myself and turning the wheel in the other direction,because I thought that I went the wrong way the first time! I’m doing much better now and even parked the trailer in the row at the end of the day. We went out on the highway yesterday in a bobtail and I LOVED it! I did a great job driving it, and I hope to do the same when we take trailers. 😊
Bobtail:
"Bobtailing" means you are driving a tractor without a trailer attached.
I’m supposed to get a trailer tomorrow. Bob tailed in heavy rush hour traffic today. Very interested to see the difference. I’m doing pretty well on my straight backs, now I need to get my offset backing down!
That's interesting. At my CDL school we were never allowed to bobtail.
CDL:
Commercial Driver's License (CDL)
A CDL is required to drive any of the following vehicles:
- Any combination of vehicles with a gross combined weight rating (GCWR) of 26,001 or more pounds, providing the gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of the vehicle being towed is in excess of 10,000 pounds.
- Any single vehicle with a GVWR of 26,001 or more pounds, or any such vehicle towing another not in excess of 10,000 pounds.
- Any vehicle, regardless of size, designed to transport 16 or more persons, including the driver.
- Any vehicle required by federal regulations to be placarded while transporting hazardous materials.
Bobtail:
"Bobtailing" means you are driving a tractor without a trailer attached.
Went out with the trailer today. I loved it! My biggest fear before coming here was getting around turns on tight streets. Well I did it today with no problems! In the afternoon, I started shifting training. The rig we took out today and yesterday was an automatic. Drove one of the beat up range trucks around the facility to work on that. A lot tougher to get that rhythm down than I thought! Great day, but I didn’t get to practice my offset backing at all today. My goal is to get that down tomorrow, and hopefully, that will help me get the alley dock and the parallel parking down.
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Started school today. Did logbooks in the morning, and then hooking and unhooking trailers. Then it started pouring rain and they had us do straight line backing, which I did terrible at. I'm really gonna need to work on it. I kept confusing myself and the instructor was busy with someone else so I just kept pulling back up and trying again. I'm about to watch a YouTube video about it and see what I did wrong, lol!
Logbook:
A written or electronic record of a driver's duty status which must be maintained at all times. The driver records the amount of time spent driving, on-duty not driving, in the sleeper berth, or off duty. The enforcement of the Hours Of Service Rules (HOS) are based upon the entries put in a driver's logbook.