Quote:
Originally Posted by G-CPTN
I learned 'on the job' - never had a moment's instruction in my life.
This is not a boast, merely fact. I started driving trucks in 1966. My job was as a test engineer for experimental vehicles. I had a log book (though I drove on trade plates). No motorway stuff either, all B roads (and some A roads on long 'field trips' - such as when we drove down to the bottom of Italy . . . ).
You just had to do it (like ceylon220). Reversing an artic or a drawbar trailer got easier the more times that you did it (trial and error). Never ever hit anything either (though I did get a fright after reversing a coach into a gap using the mirrors and found how close I ended up to the other coaches).
Mind you, I never had to sheet a load (we carried crates of concrete blocks that were 'battened' to stop them sliding).
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One job that I had was for the Sealy Bed Co delivering beds nation wide with a 42ft twin axle box trailer which had an overhang at the rear of 15ft which was a ***** if to had tight corners to turn in the towns and cities especially London central, anyway after a while they gave me all the shop/stores deliveries for all London until the shop keepers complained that the artic was blocking their street or to big to get near their doors,so they got around that and gave me a wagon and a twin wheeled drag, this meant going to the last services(Forgot the name) on the MI drop the drag, deliver the front box in the N.London area, come back and change over boxes for the Central areas , I began to like the wagon/drag and soon preferred it to my old artic only thing that I had against it was the sleeping pod on top of the cab , not very comfy, hot in summer cold in winter even with the night heater going full blast all night, will say that the wagon/drag was a doddle to reverse down tight lanes, was`nt too keen on the transfer to them at
first.