Backing Practice

Delivery is Arrowhead Meats located at 1200 Taney street in North KC MO. Black line is the dock, red line is a fence preventing you from using the driveway.

one thing that's hidden is the dock sits below street level with concrete on the sides.

This is after being docked to give you a better view.

Primarily new drivers or those considering a career how would you approach this dock? It's also 730am with plenty of passenger vehicles and trucks in the area.

If anybody else has some difficult docks they've been to please share them.

I would approach the building/dock from top side of picture. When close, wait for break in traffic then hug the left side of road. Park truck and G.O.A.L. dock area for debris, obstacles and assess angles. Return to truck and turn right towards the lot/dock apron. Once on the apron, turn back to the left into street leaving back of trailer on apron pointing towards dock on an angle. Blind side into dock with a few more goals

Additional note! Would have to physically be there to make call but may be beneficial to move trailer tandems forward to cut down turning radius. Concrete curbs bordering dock at entrance look quite low. Trailer may clear them allowing more room for turn with tandems forward

Okay here goes.....First of all I cheat by going on google earth and looking at the overall. ( which is kinda like goal). If the 2 cars at the bottom of the picture are far enough apart, I go out of the picture down Taney Street and drive back up through the parking lot. Now I am off the road and out of the traffic. When the traffic clears, I drive towards the black vehicle second down from the upper right corner of the original picture. Now by backing up I can see the abutment and curb as I approach the dock. It definitely looks like several goals are in order on this one.

I like the way both of you are thinking. I'll share what I ended up doing tomorrow morning to give anyone else interested a chance to try and come up with a plan.

Here is a picture of what Glenn suggested

May I try?

From my looking at the photo, I concur with Delco the best option would be a blind side back, coming south from the top of the photo. I would park on the right side of the road just short of the dock and then GOAL. I would also make sure the dock was free of debris, people etc and let receiver know I was ready to back in. Id be more in the middle of the road and begin my back making sure the trailer is angled toward the dock and proceed with backing. I would of course have to GOAL quite a few times, maybe a dozen. but I would take it slow. My thought is being more in the middle of the road might allow there to be space in the front of the truck swinging and avoid the fence?? Hard to tell exactly how much space there is just by a photograph.

Since I would be blind side backing, I know it would take me quite sometime -think 30 minutes or so to get it done, as i would be doing alot of GOALing. Is this a well traveled road too?

It's not a main thru street if that's what you mean, and it's a typical 2 lane road (1 lane each direction) with curbs. It's a typical industrial area so a majority of the traffic is other trucks or people going to work in these warehouses. The traffic came in spurts where there was nothing then you have about a dozen vehicles or more. I mentioned the traffic but the reality is when I have time I'm going to start my backing. Quickly after I took control of the road i had 2 trucks waiting on me from the north (top) and several cars on the south end. Keep in mind people that frequent these areas in 4 wheelers likely are aware of how to get around which is exactly what some did. They slowed down to turn then decided to go up another street. Overall it took me about 5-10 minutes, 3 goals and 3 pull ups to feel comfortable enough to bump the dock. I only mentioned the traffic volume because in reality you will have cars there, possibly honking if you take a while. You need to be able to pay attention to them to ensure they don't encroach you. I was able to get the back end far enough in before I did a GOAL which allowed traffic to go pass sharing 1 side.

Even if you take 30 minutes to do it, if you don't hit anything you did a good job. Total time spent there was about 15 minutes to deliver 1 pallet including backing in.

I would park on the right side of the road just short of the dock and then GOAL.

I do not see a center line designating lanes, thats why I opted to park on left side prior to dock area which would set me up for my swing on to apron. If there was a dividing line I would have parked on the right to stay legal

When I took the route it looked like it'd be tight. Initially I thought of doing exactly as Glenn suggested and pull through the lot (if possible due to cars parked) and do a driver side back. My thought process was I could get the back end near the right place and the lack of room on the street wouldn't be much of a factor. I have the benefit of seeing other drivers before I leave the DC , many of them have been at the company over 20 years so they've been to nearly every place we go. They told me it'd make it more difficult that way due to the drop off at the dock. I scratched that idea after talking to them. Ideally you want to avoid blind siding where possible so I pulled up to the facility on the south (bottom) end to check in and get a better view. Immediately I knew itd be a blindside maneuver. Shipping clerk came out to greet me and told me it must be my first time (from direction I was pointed) and told me he's seen it done driverside in daycabs like I'm in, but usually drivers try it about 10 minutes then give up and blindside. I wanted to avoid that so I went down the block and got turned around. I drove closest to the dock I wanted and waited for a big enough break in traffic to get my truck at nearly a 45 degree angle taking the entire street with the back end up my trailer just past the entrance. After a couple pullups due to not cutting sharp enough, or too sharp I was comfortable with where it was tracking. I got my front end far enough out of the street to allow 1 side of traffic to go at a time to do a GOAL and used another pullup because I was uncomfortable with how close the back end was due to overhang with tandems all the way up. I ended up bumping the dock first with my doors closed, then pulled up far enough to open the doors. I open my doors before backing unless it's a tight spot or I have enough space to swing them open 5 feet or so from the dock.

One thing I recommend you do when you're on your own is read google reviews for where you're going ahead of time. In this case there was 1 review that said it's a blindside dock with fast delivery. In the end though it's your judgement call to make how to do it. I've been to numerous places and had no issue while others say its extremely tight blind side. We have no idea what the reviewer is driving or their experience level. It could be a box truck or a long nose with a 53' so at the end of the day you still need to use your own discretion. One thing that also helps (not in this case) is look for tire tracks as a guide to get in and out.

Hey rob, how goes everything? I personally would call line haul and ya I don’t think so

Here's one to Consider.