A Fun Little Exercise For The Rookies.

Grumpy and others...

Think arcs/half circles, not sharp angles.

Yeah, I get that, I just couldn't get line number 3 to make an arc, for some reason.

It looks like there is 120' or more between the building and the parked cars if I am reading his measurements. Unless he meant between 45' and 80'.

If there are no cars in the red square normally, I will stick with my original. But understand, I have no idea if it will work. My only backing of a semi was only about 300 yards, into a driveway, 40 years ago, so I am clueless, I am just guessing.

In your second picture, are there normally cars parked where the red box is drawn above?

Cars? No. Cars are generally only parked in the narrow white areas around the edges. There could potentially be the odd truck waiting his turn there, though.

Also, where that dropped trailer is, there is almost always a trailer of some type dropped there. Yesterday it was a pup tanker. And there is occasionally a vending machine vendor truck refilling machines right by the break area at the top.

Well my second thought is back in off of Chambers St. Why? My luck lots marked 1 and 2 would be full when if I pulled in and would have to back out onto Chambers St anyway. I know with my 40ft camper I would rather back off a street than try to back onto a street. A long distance to back but looks to be clearest path.

This was actually my first thought. Coming from a local driver P&D standpoint, a lot of my backing came from off the street. It's hard to tell how wide the street is or if there's normally parking on the side. But that's how I would attack it.

Oops was it not our turn yet

Well my second thought is back in off of Chambers St. Why? My luck lots marked 1 and 2 would be full when if I pulled in and would have to back out onto Chambers St anyway. I know with my 40ft camper I would rather back off a street than try to back onto a street. A long distance to back but looks to be clearest path.

TBH Heavy, I was thinking same thing. Rather back in off the street and tee off the locals then get myself stuck in a bad situation. Then again I can care less if I tee off a bunch of 4 wheelers. They can sit there honking their horns and letting me know I am number 1. They will just have to wait.

TBH Heavy, I was thinking same thing. Rather back in off the street and tee off the locals then get myself stuck in a bad situation. Then again I can care less if I tee off a bunch of 4 wheelers. They can sit there honking their horns and letting me know I am number 1. They will just have to wait.

From the question, I assumed that wasn't allowed. That was my first thought as well.

TBH Heavy, I was thinking same thing. Rather back in off the street and tee off the locals then get myself stuck in a bad situation. Then again I can care less if I tee off a bunch of 4 wheelers. They can sit there honking their horns and letting me know I am number 1. They will just have to wait.

From the question, I assumed that wasn't allowed. That was my first thought as well.

Two problems with that plan of attack:

One, Chambers Way is a busy 2 lane arterial with a suicide lane, and finding a hole in traffic in both directions big enough to block out your path would be nearly impossible.

Two, the gate isn't left open during business hours. Someone has to trigger it from the inside, and by the time you got yourself set up, it'd be closed again.

So no, you're going to have to pull into the lot to do your setup and back.

Are we still doing "rookies only"?

Are we still doing "rookies only"?

I think at this point it's safe to open it as a free for all.

Okay, I think it's time for the big reveal. Here's how I do this thing.

First off, approaching the gate.

Two reasons for coming in this way. One, you have to wait in the street for someone inside to open the gate, so staging in the suicide lane means you're not blocking the universe waiting for what can be upwards of 10 minutes. Two, turning left into the gate gives you a wider turn and more room to maneuver.

Once the gate opens, the real fun begins.

First off, you're going to want your tandems all the way up for all of this. You want as tight a turning radius as possible because there just isn't much room to maneuver in here.

Step 1: once the gate opens and you get a hole in oncoming traffic, pull in as close to the right side (top in the image) of the gate as you can. As soon as your tandems clear the gate, turn hard left and go about 15 or 20 feet down into the empty space at the bottom, then crank it back hard right to bring yourself back around and straighten out by pulling up as close as you can to the break area at the top.

This is usually a good time to pull the brake and track down the guy with the clipboard to get checked in. Once you're cleared to back in, on to step 2.

Step 2: straight back as close as you can get to the pallets and dumpsters at the other end of the lot, aiming for just left of center.

Step 3: pull forward and to the left until the nose of the truck is just at the edge of the wall, and then crank it hard right and pull up to the gate. Once it opens (which it does by itself from the inside) and there's a break in traffic, pull out into the street just enough to get straightened out again, and proceed to the last step.

Step 4: straight back to the door. Stop and open your trailer once you've gotten back far enough to allow the gate to close, and aim for the door closest to the alley.

The biggest key to all of this is to go S L O W. Not only will this allow you to stop and makes corrections/adjustments as needed, but there's a lot of foot and fork truck traffic in there, and the last thing you want to do is squitch somebody whose face is buried in their phone on the way to the can.