Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/62228
Smart Driving Safely backing your truck requires patience and practice B acking a big rig into a load- ing dock or parking space can be a humbling experi- ence. If you don't get it right, you run the risk of shearing off your own or another truck's mirror or scraping your trailer. If done hap- hazardly, you could raise the ire of other truckers by not allowing enough space for them. Backing up to a warehouse door, often between other trailers, or across a street, avoiding traffi c or with limited space to turn, re- quires experience, patience, smart use of your mirrors and caution. If you make a mistake, it will cost you or your carrier — or both. Gina Stumborg, leased with husband Don as a team to Duplain- ville Transport, says safely backing up requires remaining cool and not rushing it. "No matter how frustrat- ing it is, stay calm," she says. TIGHT SPACES Owner-operator Gina Stumborg often delivers to downtown destinations that were never designed to accommodate 53-foot trailers. She ran into those often during fi ve years of trucking in New York City. "Some- times you're backing down one-way streets the wrong way to get into a door," she says. "It's very tricky." One of Stumborg's memorable current 18 | TRUCKERS NEWS | MAY 2012 Albert Transport independent owner-operator Henry Albert says a driver often encounters backing situations when he or she is not in the perfect frame of mind — either at the end of a long day or at the beginning of duty: "You've been thinking of getting to that destination all day, but you have to watch that you don't drop your guard and say, 'I'm fi nally here.' That's when you might mess up." Dick McCorkle, an owner- operator leased to Hiner Transport, concurs that most accidents hap- pen during the fi rst and last hours of daily driving; that could be at a customer's dock or a truckstop. There's no right or wrong way to back up successfully, he adds. The fi rst thing he does is activate his four-way blinkers. "This tells every- one I'm getting ready to do some- thing," he says. Then he jumps out destinations is the post offi ce in downtown Baltimore, where drivers have to drop off their trailer for unloading after backing in because space is so limited. "It takes a lot of drivers working together to back into that door," she says. "If you work together you can go in at the same time so you're not blocking the other driver, and you both can drop your trailers. There's no give in between. Some drivers take 30 to 40 minutes to get into those docks." backward glance More than a by MAX KVIDERA Gina Stumborg says she surveys the loading area before she checks in and ensures if she's square with the dock when she chocks her wheels. of the cab to look behind him and in both directions if he's going to back across a road. He'll recruit someone to sight for him if he can, then "start to back up. I will prob- ably stop twice just to make sure it's all clear and nothing is behind me, and then I'll ease on back. I'll probably stop within a foot of the dock area or door, get out and see how everything looks before I ease on back." Albert says he surveys the area for buildings, vehicles and space to maneuver when he pulls in to the destination to avoid getting trapped with too little space. Get out and take a look before you start moving back. "I saw a guy hit a light pole that was at the back of a parking spot because he didn't get out to look," he says. Stumborg says one facility where she often delivers has a light pole near the loading area. She's seen drivers hit smaller poles that protect the pole because they couldn't see them in their mirror and didn't look for them in advance. Another obstacle at many manufacturing plants are boulders set along a driveway to keep trucks from encroaching on grass, she says. GINA STUMBORG