Moving can be an exciting time: maybe you are on your way to your next job, house, or apartment. Maybe you are starting at a new school. Maybe you are finally getting that dream house in that dream state that you have always dreamed of. No matter which of the above the situations apply, you still have to move. If you have the money, you can hire people to move you, and then all you have to do is focus on driving yourself to that new place. But most people don't have that kind of money, and have to rely on doing their own driving, at the wheel of a rented moving truck. Here is the way to do it safely.
The first thing to do is leave your ego at the door. Yes, I'm talking primarily to the guys who are reading this, but this could apply to the ladies as well. We are born with this notion that we should be able to do anything just because we have to do it. This is wrong, and gets guys in to lots of trouble. It is OK to admit you don't know a lot about driving a moving truck, and that you need to take it slow and feel things out. In fact, this is the best way to approach the moving truck, as it is those people who treat the moving truck as a car who end up ripping the corners off of parking structures, hitting cars, or running over curbs. And guess who gets to pay for all of that damage: yep, the driver. So respect the truck and what it represents, and be OK with the fact that this is new for you and that you need to go slower until you are comfortable.
The fact of the matter is that for most people, a moving truck is the largest thing they will ever drive. And most people apply the width, following distance, and braking distance of their street car to a moving truck. This doesn't work. A moving truck has twice the turning radius of a street car, and needs much longer to stop, especially if it's fully loaded. The visibility out of the windows and mirrors of a moving truck is terrible, and you just can't turn you head to see if someone is in the blind spot. It is a much different beast than a street car, and as soon as the driver realizes that, and respects it, they are on their way to a safe driving situation.
Let's look at some of those differences between road cars and moving trucks. The first thing we are going to look at is visibility. You will notice first off that you are higher off of the ground in a moving truck, and that your mirrors are bigger. You need both of those to help you see. But while you have bigger mirrors, you don't have a center mounted rear-view mirror like you do in your car (because all you could see in that mirror, if they gave you one, is the front end of the cargo compartment). You need to get in to the habit of checking your mirrors often, and relying on your blind spot mirror to help you figure out if you can pass or not. Below is a typical U haul mirror.
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| A typical U-Haul Mirror |
Next is stopping distance. If you came from a regular street car, your stopping distances just went from stopping on a dime, to taking football field length spaces to stop in a moving truck. This is because your weight just went up, due to all of the things your moving truck is carrying. It takes driving the truck to know this for sure, but a good rule of thumb is that if you get the biggest moving truck U-haul rents (which I believe is a 26-foot truck), you should triple your stopping distances to start. And always stop smoothly. Stopping smoothly and in a controlled fashion will be the difference between braking for a stop, and breaking all your stuff. Start off with triple the stopping distance, and then you can lessen it if you see that you are coming to a full stop before triple the stopping distance of your car. I'd bet you end up with a stopping distance between two times and three times the stopping distance of your road car.
The turning radius is the next thing we are going to look at. Your road car has a relatively tight turning radius (turning radius is the size of the circle that the vehicle makes as it turns. The smaller the car, the smaller the turning radius. The bigger the car, the bigger the turning radius). A moving truck has a bigger turning radius than a road car, much bigger in fact. You need to keep this in mind as you complete left or right turns. It will take longer for the car to complete a turn than it does in your road car, and if you try to negotiate a turn in a moving truck the same way and with the same turning as a road car, you will run over cars and sidewalks, guaranteed. You need to give your moving truck more room to stop, as well as more room to turn.
Lastly, lets look at something that has nothing to do with driving, but can have a big impact on you being able to drive safely: the way you load the truck. You should follow the instructions that the moving truck company gives you as far as loading goes. But one rule of thumb is that you want to make sure that there is no way that the stuff you have in the moving truck can move, or shift. If you try to take a corner in your moving truck, and the turn makes the stuff you have in the back of the moving truck shift, not only will it damage your belongings, but it could push the truck one way or another based on the excess force that the load moving puts on the truck. There is a correct way, and an incorrect way to load a moving truck. Let's let the folks at Penske truck rentals, a major moving truck rental company, show us how it should be done:
If you respect your moving truck for it's size, unique requirements regarding mirrors and vision, extra room needed to turn and slow down, and you load it just like shown above. Your moving truck experience can be just as magical and exciting as hopefully your move will be. Until next time...
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