Parallel Parking - Blindside
Chick Mooney with Mooney CDL Training has produced several instructional videos that can be viewed on his YouTube channel or you can purchase his entire video libary directly from his website.
The truck starts in the lane next to the parking space (on passenger side), pulls forward (Just past the space) and backs into the space. The driver does not have much space to swing out in preparation for the paralell parking maneuver. It’s similar to parallel parking your car downtown. You'll pull parallel to the car in front of your spot. You don’t start with your car angled in the lane. Trucks like to swing out a bit. They might need 15’ from the parking space.
Length of the vehicle plus 15 ft with an 18" stop box in the rear, and 12' wide.
- Step 1 Pull forward and stop when the rear of your trailer is about 1 to 2 feet past the front line of cones.
- Step 2 Steer hard left to force your trailer to the right and begin backing. When the right front corner of trailer is above the rightside truck frame rail (use the rear window in a daycab or in a sleeper, look for 3/4 of landing gear in convex mirror).
- Step 3 Steer hard right and backup until vehicle is straight (truck directly ligned up in front of trailer).
- Step 4 In the driver side mirror, look for cones 8 and 9 on the side row. If you can’t see either cone, pull forward or back up to reposition your trailer. Your goal is to keep the passenger side of your trailer between cones 8 and 9 as you backup.
- Step 5 Continue backing lined up with cones 8 to 9 until the trailer tandems split the outside (driver side) line. then steer hard right.
- Step 6 Continue to back up until the left front corner of the trailer is above the left truck frame rail and then steer hard left and backup until the vehicle (tractor and trailer) is in the box.