Launching Pad

Okay, so the title of this post may be a bit dramatic, but in a way, I am launching my new truck driving career - and the next step in this journey takes me to the maneuvers "pad."
Let me set the stage for you here. I'm talking about what amounts to a 3 or 4 acre parking lot, with 5 or 6 sections lined off with a series of industrial-sized traffic cones. As I showed in a previous post, the day starts with 9 or 10 of the Werner/Roadmaster 18-wheelers lined up like pretty maids all in a row. Then, around 7:30-7:45-ish each morning, the entire class is split up into various groups. 

Two or three groups of students, usually four at a time, head out with an instructor and get in some serious 'road time.' Each student gets about 45 minutes to navigate the local rural roads, city/town streets, an industrial park or two, and a few miles of Interstate 20. The rest of the students are divided up in groups of around 7 or 8 and they spend the day in the sweltering heat, waiting for their opportunity to learn and practice the primary tractor-trailer backing and parking maneuvers.

You have your basic 'straight back' which is exactly what it sounds like. You're driving this behemoth vehicle forward a couple hundred feet, and then you have to carefully back it up into and through "the box." In truck driving it's always about getting the trailer "into the box" safely. That just means getting it into the loading dock without damaging other trucks or equipment, a building, or whatever is in the immediate area. The straight back is relatively easy, but you still need to focus, because even small movements in the steering wheel can mess up your line and then you're chasing your tail the rest of the maneuver, trying to get it in safely.

Also, because you have a 53-foot long trailer that's pivoting or articulating on the drive wheels behind the truck's cab, all of your movements are thrown off because they're the opposite of driving a regular car or SUV. While backing a trailer, when you move right, the trailer's tail goes left. When you go left, the trailer moves right. Got it? Yeah, so a big part of all of this training is re-wiring your brain to understand that what you're seeing in the 6 different mirrors (no 'rear-view' mirror in the cab!) is going to react much differently than you're used to.

After the straight back, you learn "Offset" backing. That means pulling forward out of one spot, straight ahead, and then backing into the space directly next to where you just were. I liken it to parallel parking the truck into the adjacent space, and then backing it in from there. You have to be able to do it from left to right (blind side) and from right to left (sight side). Generally speaking, blind side backing and parking is always more difficult because that means that you're moving the entire truck in a direction in which you can't use your passenger side mirrors to help you. If you're doing a 'sight side' maneuver, that means that in addition to using your mirrors, you can always just turn your head and look out the window and see what the tail of the truck is doing while you're backing up.
The next maneuvers, which are also very tough, are the parallel parking back-ups. Apparently, according to the pros, these maneuvers aren't used a whole lot, but just enough that you really need to know how to do them. They also fall into the sight side and blind side versions. I will say that improvements made in these maneuvers definitely help you get better at both of the offset backing options. They use the very same steps to accomplish their goal.

The final, lethal maneuver on the practice pad is the "90 degree Alley dock". It's brutal and will put a beginner or novice driver to the test. You are basically driving all the way past the parking spot or alley where you want to park, then you' have to be able to back the truck at a 90 degree angle, into the spot. Fortunately, it's nearly always done on the sight side, but because of the precarious angle you're taking, you have to be very careful about what's happening on the blind side. It takes 8-10 feet of movement by the cab before you truly can tell exactly what the tandem wheels in back or the tail of the trailer is doing - this is your "trailer or tandem lag time." A lot of doubt can creep into your mind in those 8-10 feet, like "Did I even turn the wheel in the right direction to make it in there?"
I can safely say that the first couple of times attempting this torturous task, I broke out into a full-on sweat - and that was with the A/C absolutely blasting inside the cab. And let me tell you, I was going through my training in late June through early July in Georgia!

It was freaking hotter than Hades nearly every day. I'm talking like 95 degrees and 75% humidity just about daily. Many people brought umbrellas to class to use as parasols and create their own shade, while others would site down in the shadows of nearby parked trucks. The alley dock area actually had a small covered tent-like thing, so as hard as that maneuver is, folks liked to be assigned there to beat the heat. LOL

The hardest part of all this is the waiting. Some days we'd have eight or more people in a group, and on occasion we'd have a classmate who was more advanced than us come through to practice once prior to taking their state CDL exam, or someone would be sent to 'evaluate out' which meant they had to pass the school's final test, before they'd be allowed to take the state examination.

This was my life for four weeks during the Summer of 2019 - from 7am until 6pm, Monday through Saturday, with an hour for lunch and two 15 minute breaks- one in the morning session and again in the afternoon. Brutal. It reminded me of Hell Week or Christmas training while I was swimming in college, only hotter - and outside. Oh, and I'm old as dirt, so that didn't help.
We're really just getting started, but I'll have more next time!