That's how I've been doing it in ETS2.

not sure I get this... how else would you do it?

Not all of us have experience driving heavy vehicles, the explanation is the interesting bit here.

To more directly answer your question: Slowly, with many more attempts, and then end up at a funny angle anyway.

Like a boss!

I could never do that in a million years.

So... is he flying a drone while he backs in?

I believe you're supposed to pull truck and trailer around and line up so that you're backing straight in where you can see on both sides, which makes is safer.

There are drones that can automatically follow you. I have a friend that has one that he uses to record himself off-roading. You tell it what to lock on to, and it tracks that object.

I drove a semi sometimes for a couple years for my family farm. Didn't drive a whole lot, and pretty much all on back dirt roads and in lots/fields, to get some experience before possibly getting a CDL. Never ended up getting the CDL because I moved and changed jobs. I was around and learned from skilled drivers (my dad for one), so I know a little bit, but I'm certainly no expert. That being said:

Backing up a vehicle with a trailer is quite difficult because compared to a normal vehicle with no trailer, all your intuition is wrong and little mistakes get amplified quickly.

Backing up a car and want your tail end to go right? Turn the wheel right. Want the same thing to happen in a semi with a trailer? First turn the wheel left while you back up, which will push the tail end of your tractor left, causing a reaction like pressing on a lever that pushes the tail end of the trailer right. But don't overdo it, because that same lever-type action causes more movement the further you get away from the fulcrum point, so a tiny move there can result in a BIG swing.

Complicating that, you have no central rear view mirror. Side mirrors work, but distance can be obscured by the huge trailer very quickly.

Basically, backing up is one of the most daunting things about learning to drive a truck, particularly for people new to it. The "pull ups" he mentioned are the best way to overcome that. Pulling forward a short/medium distance gets the tractor and trailer back into alignment, so that straight back should result in the trailer going straight back. From that point, you can try to make small corrections. If it starts to swing a lot, pull up again and straighten out, lather rinse repeat.


The guy in the video does a good job (way better than I could do), but he seems to think he's the shit. I don't think you earn real trucking community bragging rights until you can reverse double trailers, or even triples if you want to be worshiped as a god.

Here's a video with doubles:


One of the full-timers on my family farm was quite good with doubles. Not "obstacle course" good, but I saw him reverse a slow circle around a grain bin. And he liked to tell stories about a some semi-mythical whiz guy that could reverse triples around a corner, etc.