Driving Something 42' Long!

[John]

Steve,

There are various RV drivers schools located around the country and
by doing a GOOGLE search you will be able to find some of them, here
are a couple of them;

http://www.rvschool.com/index.htm

http://www.rvrite.com/

You may also want to check with your local community college, for a
training course, sometimes they are offered there.

I personally got my training back in the early 70's, when I leased a
brand new truck on to a company that hauled mobile homes, this was a
weeks course of classroom and driving through Elkhart, Indiana while
pulling a 12' x 60' mobile home trailer, so it was a baptism of fire,
so to speak. I also spent a year driving a city bus later and that
helped me to learn how to drive with the drivers seat position in
front of the steering axle, which can be a problem if you have only
driven vehicles where you sit behind the steering axle. Learning how
to drive and make turns and using your outside rear view mirrors to
check the location of the 'Bird and the trailer, in my opinion is a
very important lesson to learn, since I pull the trailer 99% of the
time, this is the only way that I drive.

I find that using the outside mirrors is very important and now
driving my 62' long combination of 'Bird and enclosed trailer is not
that difficult. I find that the location of the rear view monitor TV
screen, which is located in the overhead dash, is in a very bad
position on my 'Bird, it requires you to look up and completely away
from the forward view of the road, so I never use it and only rely on
my mirrors, plus with the trailer hooked up to the 'Bird, this makes
the use of the monitor insignificant, unless I want to just look at
the front of my trailer and since I was trained to use the outside
mirrors, I'm more comfortable doing it this way.

I also found that after I purchased my 'Bird, I took a tip from one
of the Wanderlodge forums and found a parking lot with a perimeter
road that was not used on the weekends, I then placed the 'Bird in
the middle of the right lane and then noted where the center line
between the two lanes "CROSSED" a point on the dash, I then placed a
piece of masking tape, that I could see in my peripheral vision,
where that imaginary line would cross the dash and that in turn
helped me to keep the 'Bird in the middle of the lane without having
to constantly check the mirrors, on my 'Bird the point on the dash is
between two gages, so now I don't need the tape, but I can see the
two gages on the dash and the line on the road.

While I was in the parking lot, I used the marked parking spaces to
practice backing into, taking some large cardboard boxes with you to
place at the corners of the parking space will help you identify, if
you are overrunning the width of the space, as you are manuvering
back into the space, as they will move when you touch them and you
will be able to see this once you are parked in the space, setting
the width of the boxes to 10 feet minimum is probably more realistic,
for the average camping space, that you would have to back into.

"REMEMBER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001"
John Finn
'82 35FCRB
BLUEBIRD WANDERLODGE
TO VISIT THE "FINN'S INN EXPRESS" REMODELING ADVENTURE
GO TO;
http://www.pbase.com/image/24977457
HOPKINS, SOUTH CAROLINA

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>
> --- In WanderlodgeForum@yahoogroups.com, "haycabe" <shayden@> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Hi. I am new to this forum having just joined because I am
considering
> > joining you Wanderlodge folks. You all seem to have such a great
> time! I
> > admit, however, to being more than just a little bit intimidated
about
> > driving something this big. I live in the Columbus, OH, area and
> wonder
> > if any of you knows where I could get some training in the
central
> Ohio
> > vicinity. Thanks.
> >
> > Steve Hayden
> >
>