Trucking School - Episode #5 - How to Reverse a Truck 

As a trucker, I was taught to blind side back only if I absolutely have to. Also, always remember to GOAL (Get Out And Look) constantly when you do so.

If you're using a wheel, put your hand at the bottom (6 o'clock) of the wheel, and move your hand in the direction that you want your trailer to go. It's how my pops taught me when I was first learning.

I think it would be cool if they had a large area for practicing your driving skills. 300ft straight line backup, The Backward serpentine, and the 45 Degrees Docking maneuver were just some of the skills drivers get tested on to get a licence.

having been a teacher for 35 years, I have to say that you're a pretty good one. Bravo, and thanks

As far as the sight-side back, coming from somebody who does this for a living, I was always taught to look out the window to see where the trailer was going. You can only see so much with the mirrors, you have a much better visibility looking out the window. As for the blind-side back, I was always told don't do it unless you absolutely have no choice. When in doubt, get out and look.

While I was instructing students I would always tell them an old paradox, the slower you go the quicker you will get it done. Meaning, don't try and get the reverse done in one move, take a couple of bites until you are truly competent. Even us experienced truckers have problem days where we look like complete novices. As mentioned in another post, put your hand at the 6 o'clock position and move it towards the direction you want the trailer to go.

I always have a problem in ETS with reversing Trailers. This Episode Really helps me a lot. Thanks Paul!!

Great series Paul! When I was driving a truck in the military, I learned a little trick that may help. When using mirrors to back, keep an eye on the end of the trailer. If it starts moving too far in one direction, turn the wheel slightly in the same direction and it will straighten back up. Basically, whichever way you move the wheel, the end of the trailer is going to go the opposite. Happy trucking!

Hi Squirrel! I needed this in 1998 when I was struggling to park a 53' trailer in Ottawa, Ontario, at the school! You explained things very well, I am impressed. I should add that once I was home for weekends, I couldn't back our car into a spot at the grocery store! hahaha

Awesome video! I tweeted Volvo Trucks about ATS and they replied! They said they're looking into ATS! I hope they do!

You are such a great teacher. I'm very new to trucks and American Trucking Sim, and decided I wanted to fully back it up myself for the xp...... Well I didn't understand, and all I needed to do was watch the first 5mins and got it on my first/second try! I didn't understand having to drive forward to angle the cab, and then reverse out and straighten out. Thank you brother!

SCS implemented 3 selections in the controller settings in the shiftier section .Eaton Fuller 10, 13 and 18 speed transmissions. This way all you have to do is change between those 3 to fit the transmission of the truck . Also i really recommend you try the advanced shifting, over the simple+sounds because it's pretty realistic. You can float gears (Shift with no clutch) and double clutch like you should be when you have heavy loads. The transmissions in American trucks are totally different than those in Europe. European transmissions are like the ones in car's. They have synchronizers, so you can shift in to any gear while the clutch is pressed, without relation to the engine RPM. As for American transmissions (Eaton Fuller, Meritor, Rockwell, Spicer, Alliston, etc) they do not have syncronizers so you must have correct engine RPM to get into gear, if not it will crunch very loudly. That's why when doing a road test you must double clutch (press clutch, get out of gear, let go of clutch, press clutch again, get into gear). This ensures that the transmission can sync with the engine RPM prior to getting into gear. Personally I don't double clutch , i float the gears , but when pulling a heavy load, i do it to ensure that i get into gear while going up a hill. Anyways this means that you also can't skip gears the way you are doing now, because to skip gears (for example 2, 4, 6 in a 10 speed) you must wait quite a bit before shifting so that the engine RPMs drop enough to allow to get into gear. Also just a tip, NEVER give gas when pulling away, the engine has enought power to start in it's lowest gear with extreme loads no problems. If you're pulling regular loads. Up to 20 -25 tons with a ten speed i recommend always starting in first gear, unless bobtail (no trailer) you can start in second, as the 10 speed has wide gear ratios. With 13 and 18, first position is actually low gear, you don't need this unless , again you're pulling heavy loads. Also a note is that you can shift a 18 speed like a 13 speed and even a 9 speed. You can also shift a 13 speed like a 9 speed. Wow that was a lot of talking. But hope you try the advanced shifting and Eaton Fuller s presets : )

Waiting for one of my asshat fellow countrymen (US) to complain about why a Brit is teaching us to drive... Keep up the videos Squirrel/Paul! Great tutorials for those who are new to ETS/ATS, trucking, and trailers!

You're a good teacher. Thank you!

I'm glad you made this. Never driven anything with a trailer in my life and wanted to try this game and for the life of me I can't figure out how to get the trailer to move the way I want it to. Doesn't help I'm VERY bad at driving.

Thanks for the tips. I'll put it to good use with normal trailers, and work my way up to reversing oversized trailers.

thank you for this, just bought ATS after playing the demo for 3+ hrs, and thanks to this guide i can park now

Best video about reversing trailers I seen so far. It makes so much more sense now. Thank you

How I think of it is the truck is the 'front wheels' of the entire tractor-trailer combo, while the front wheels are the front wheels of the truck. Using the top down view, it just makes sense to me...

Playing ets2 first go and I've been working at getting my head around the reverse concept from in the cab. This tho is useful to help solidify those concepts. And yes I go for the harder way to learn because once you learn that, everything else is easy peasy.

This video is incredibly helpful! Reversing makes a lot more intuitive sense now.

One thing that helped me in reversing a trailer is, look at the steering wheel and turn the bottom of the wheel in the direction you want the trailer to go. That really simplified things for me.

Nice teaching..... I now know how to do reverse parking and your principles are absolutely correct...... Keep it up.

I remember when I was being taught how to reverse with a trailer, not on such a large scale, sit on lawn mower with drop down trailer which we used for ferrying bits around a building site that would take forever in wheelbarrow. The scale may not be anywhere near comparison but the principle is the same the trailer always goes the opposite of the way you are turning so you counter it, I used to not think about it and found going with the flow so to speak made it easier when having to get it through tight gaps and such as opposed to over thinking it. This is a great little series of videos for non Truck Simulator experience but I played the first ETS and Scania Truck Simulator so for the most part this stuff is drilled into me anyway.

Great series Paul - some awesome tips here! :D

Excellent tutorial. I've just started playing ATSe and never tried a driving game before so need all the help I can get. Thanks

This popped up in my recommendations but the way I figured it out was just that a single trailer will require you to turn the wheel the opposite direction of where you'd want your truck to go if there weren't a trailer attached.

I always have trouble parking reverse in cargo truck simulator and truck simulator 18 but this helped me a lot thanks for the advice

tip from the movie Cars and this applies to backing up a trailer Go Right to go Left and Go Left to go Right. the problem is that fifth wheel. If you do it wrong you will jackknife and you will have to drop the trailer and reset.

The wheelbarrow analogy is genius Paul, totally get it from that alone! 😀

I just watched the ATS review and the whole (by now) Trucking School, and I have to thank you for all these videos. I've been playing ETS2 for a while but I've learned by trial and error. (I play with keyboard and sequential change and I don't know how to use the retarder yet, e.g.). Now I'm thinking about buying the ATS and your videos are very useful to get into the game in a proper way. Some things are a bit obvious at least for me, but I'm grateful with all your advices and your dedication; step by step, of course! One more thing, thank you very much for the subtitles, they are awesome for me. Greetings from Spain, here it is a new subscriber ;)

I first started playing trucking games way back when Hard Truck came out, and my second truck driving game was Haulin, which was when I finally learned how to back a trailer up, on my own, might I add. Basically, I learned that if you look at the truck head on, you can just turn the wheel in the direction you want the trailer to go, and it will go that way. Then I could use the mirrors inside the truck, by just imagining myself looking at the truck head on. My friend, who is my age, both seniors in high school, still cant back up trailers in games, and I keep trying to teach him how. Hopefully this video will help him more than I can. 😂

I said it in the previous video, and I will say it here. Scania Truck Driving Sim will help teach some backing up and you can do it over and over as that is part of its design. Different controls etc... but it does help.

I'll surely have to put these tips into practice, I always have issues with reversing. I always try, and nearly jackknife most of the time.

Another way to explain this, would be to point the back wheels (of the back) towards the way you want to go, same thing with 2, ,3 or more trailers!

Everything that paul say is true. I did learnt to park a trailer by practicing alot. First i try to park it from the 3 camera and when im feeling confident enough, i tried to park from inside and nearside. And finnaly the blindside parking. It took me a week full practicing these lol 😂😂😂. But the point is, start with the basic, keep practicing and then you can master it. Precisely like paul just said.

As someone who's actually trying to get their HGV licence before the end of the year this is actually pretty useful. I originally got the game because it doesn't charge £100 an hour for practice. :-P

What I do when near-side reversing, is act like I'm steering the trailer. When I look out the window, I turn my wheel the way I want my trailer to go. That's how I do it. I never do far-sided reverse because the mirror is smaller. I could use the F2 mirrors, but I don't feel like learning to reverse a different direction. Lol

A quick tip: Imagine the BOTTOM of your steering wheel, whichever way it´s pointing that's the direction the trailer is going to turn.

7:26 whenever we feel comfortable-well that’s the hard part I think. I either turn too early or too late. Or I turn too much. I understand how it works but just find it hard to operate in different situations

Not that it will help everyone in the game, but one trick I was taught to remove the confusion in turning a trailer in reverse is to hold the steering wheel at the bottom. That way, you simply move your hand the direction you want the trailer to turn.

i finally mastered reversing. thanks Squirrel.

ATS is out! Downloading from Steam now.

Thanks for this I am struggling so much with parking hope that I can put some of these principles into practice and learn how too park. Seems a great game and allows me too do some driving even if its only virtual as I am banned from driving now and will be for the rest of my life.

Thanks so much for this series. It is awesome!!

thanks teacher squirrel your the best teacher

Great video easy to follow and understand and extremely helpful

Great Vids Paul they have really helped I can now play the game properly and enjoy it more thanks again

Whilst looking out of my window its almost no problem but doing it just from the inside screws up my whole thinking and I keep on turning and steering like stupid... And then I got the brilliant idea to add my wheel to the PC and now its completely weird. But I'm still quite hopeful that I will manage to learn this. Especially the big trailers with a little one attached to them will be a total pain in the ass I fear. :D But to get an idea how to start learning this the video was perfect! Thanks for that!

you do a very nice job for teaching, how to revers a truck

I've always backed up from the in the cabin camera. I just think about it as I turn towards the mirror that I don't want to see the trailer in. If that makes any sense.

More trucking school? Pleaseeee!!

I went for the hardest way with the mirrors plus I know how cuz my dad drives a semi and I understand it all ...don't jackknife your self. Right to turn the trailer left then turn left to get the trailer to go right

Really appreciate your trucking school video. Nice. When your next Episode trucking school ?

Cheers for this video. Very helpful. I'm really enjoying your videos. Keep up the good work!

Old video, but still pertinent information. Very well done!!

Truly fascinating!

I found it easy to learn to revers truck in ETS by looking out of the window and steering in the direction in wanted to the trailer end to go. (using the twist function on my joystick to steer as i dont have a wheel)

As a real life & Sim Trucker... You are a excellent Trainer! Slap a "trainer" decal on your rig. need guys like you in real life for damn sure lol

Thank's a lot for this helpful tutorial!

Dude this helped so much. Thanks

nice video squizzy

Thank you for this! Trying to park the trailer was making me nuts

Don't you have to purchase your first truck before being able to practice backing? Sorry if I missed this somewhere in video. :)

Scania truck simulator was great for learning

This was helpful...While I know how to reverse small trailers with a pickup/SUV, the timing is considerably different, when the trailer is 3x longer than the truck. It's also disorienting when you can't fluidly look around, sit up and look over the hood, lean over to see the mirror closely, etc like real life. This game would be way easier in VR I think. Also, I'm sure you get this a lot but I have to ask, do you live in America or did you learn how to drive right-hand just to make youtube videos? lol

Finaly my good youtuber made it to euro truck simulator 2

Super helpful

Do you have an articulated guide? I really struggle with tight spaces and parking!

I think I love you. Thank you so much.

What I actually learned as a non-native english speaker is where the term "Kingpin" and "5th wheel" is coming from :P

Not complaining because the video was very helpful but my external view shows my steering direction and angle by default, at the bottom of the screen. It would have been great if you had been showing this, I think my issue is that I am steering way too much when from the look of it you are barely turning the wheels.

Now show us how to back up a tandem lol

Excellent help me alot thanks

Whoop! I finally learnt how to park in ETS2!

I have a question Squirrel are you professional truck driver ??? good video, very skilled..

also I sometimes find the trailer barely moves. It’s just turning it’s direction but without actually moving backward. Maybe I was reversing a more difficult truck

Good video!

Very good explained, but hearing it like this sounds odd to me, because I don't need to think about it. Now I just remembered how damn confusing it can be! :D

Very informative!!!!

Thx Sooo Much!! Squirrel

hay squirrel nice video's was wounding when yr doing a play throw i use to watch your euro truck sim 2 videos wile playing the game. most of the tips are not that useful for me but to new people to truck sim's i bet it is helping a lot. keep up the great work.

omg he makes it looks so easy

cool video, I am not sure if you still make ATS videos but could you make a video on how to reverse with Articulated trailers?? i cannot figure it out

Just amazinggggg!! Omggg!! Thank youuu

Is there a way you can just free-roam practice? Or do you just need to do a job, pick up a trailor and deliver the job late after practicing?

wonderful

Dla NORMALNEGO Europejczyka taki filmik to kpina i umieram ze śmiechu podczas oglądania :D. Ale dla populacji z USA... to przydany stek informacji.

Thanks

Hi Paul when do the next 3 Trucking School episodes come out or are they out already I’ve just finished watching number 5. So just wondering about 6 7 8

Great sir !!

You should post more trucking diaries today please???!!!!

man u r awesome thanks

i would like to see him do it with only a keyboard and mouse lol

I'm currently downloading ATS!

I might have watched this video 100 times ad I still can't properly reverse. My trailer either bends too much or not at all and seems to do it's own thing instead of following my directions. Not really sure if I need to fix something on my settings or I just suck at the game (which is probably the problem). But hey, great video! Very well explained. Thanks a lot

Lol at 16:53 he switches to external camera and goes "and there you go" and you see that he's like 20 feet from the parking space lmao

Turn right to go left and turn left to go right when in reverse.

Late to the game but damn making it look easy.

I bought both ATS an ETS2 recently in a sale. Which one is better in your opinion, and why?