For anyone who tows on weekends and vacations
One method for every back-in: the same five phases each time. I'm Wade Halvorsen. I learned this badly, at a boat ramp, at fifteen.
Back In Without Yelling and Tow Steady are also sold on their own. The Trailer Backing Guide comes only in this collection of 3 books.
Vol. I
Campsites, driveways and boat ramps, with a spotter or solo, while everyone watches
For the dread of backing in while the campground watches, and the yelling with whoever is guiding you.
Best value
Book I covers the site and the people. Book II covers the road. Book III is the method itself, and it only comes here. Each book sends you to the others instead of repeating them.
Vol. II
Trailer sway, weight, hitch setup, brakes, downgrades, and your plan if sway starts
For the white-knuckle feeling when a semi passes and the trailer starts to wag behind you.
I was fifteen, with a learner's permit and my dad in the passenger seat. A line of trucks sat idling behind me at the North Bay ramp. I cranked the wheel, folded the boat toward the truck, and kept going until Dad said, quietly, “Stop.” I tried again and folded it the other way, and somebody in the line laughed out loud.
My ears burned. Dad didn't say a word about the laughing. He had me put it in Park, set the brake, and walk back with him. He pointed at the trailer axle and said, “That's where it turns. Not where you are.”
My mistake was steering the truck as if it were the trailer. Big turns, and I kept backing after the angle was already gone. It took me years in an empty lumberyard lot to boil it down to five words on an index card taped to my dash: Position, Angle, Chase, Even out, Recover.
These 3 books are those five words and everything around them. Book I is the site, the spotter and the people watching. Book II is the road. The Trailer Backing Guide is the method, the maneuvers, the ramp and hitching, with cone Drills to keep the rust off.
I'm not a professional driver, and I hold no certificates. I'm the neighbor who gets asked. This is what I tell them, in order.
See you at the ramp. Take your time.Wade
Most chapters walk through the same parts, in the same order, so you always know where to look.
What the trailer, the weight or the space is doing, and why it feels the way it does from the seat. Sometimes I start with a mistake of mine. No numbers without a source.
Backing chapters follow P.A.C.E.R.: Position, Angle, Chase, Even out, Recover. Road and hitching chapters go in plain order. Every time you leave the seat: Park, parking brake, and engine off if anyone goes between truck and trailer. If you have a spotter, it says where they stand.
What you should see from the seat and in each mirror when it's going right. Things you can check, not a feeling. Look for the box called In your mirrors.
The mistakes people describe most, each with what it looks like and the small fix.
Stop. Park and brake. Get out and look. Then pull forward and start over. That's Recover, the fifth phase, not a failure.
In the chapters where it matters: mirrors set so you don't have to twist, the camera as a help, more stops to look, and hitching without bending more than you have to. If it hurts, talk to your doctor.
What to read on your own door placard and in your own manuals, and what changes by state or province. Your plate and your manual win over anything I say.
Back up, launch and hook up any trailer with your pickup
For anyone who has towed for years and still folds it up, or lost confidence along the way.
Brainerd, Minnesota · towing boats and campers with a pickup since he was a teenager
I grew up on the north side of Brainerd. My dad, Arne, was a lineman for the electric co-op, and on Saturday mornings he took me to the boat ramp. I worked 38 years in maintenance at the regional hospital. Towing never paid a bill. It's what Carol and I do from May to October.
In 2019 I fell off a stepladder at work and hurt my neck. I couldn't twist to look over my shoulder anymore. I told my doctor and did what she told me. Then I spent a gray April afternoon in the old lumberyard lot learning to back the travel trailer with mirrors only, while Carol watched the cones and said nothing. By evening I could do it, slowly.
Our neighbor Dot didn't want me backing her fifth wheel in for her. She wanted to know how. That's when I started teaching instead of doing, and our daughter Annie made me write it down at the kitchen table.
Nobody is born knowing how to back a trailer. I wrote down what I learned, mistakes first, so you don't have to learn it in front of the Saturday line.
Read them for 7 days. If they're not for you, write to me and I'll refund every cent. I may ask what didn't work, because I want to know. You don't have to answer, and your refund doesn't depend on it.
They arrive instantly after you pay. Nothing comes in the mail. You open them on your phone, your tablet or your computer, and you can print them at home if you like paper on the kitchen table. If you wanted printed books mailed to you, ask for your refund.
You pay by card or PayPal, on Payhip’s secure payment page. I never see your payment details.
You have 7 days. Ask, and I refund you. No conditions.
Yes. I wrote these for people who already tow and still get stuck, or lost their confidence after a bad stretch. I jackknifed plenty of times after I thought I knew how. What fixed it was a method I could follow when I was nervous.
I can't promise you a quiet marriage. I can tell you what worked for Carol and me: the plan happens before the truck moves. One voice, agreed signals, the spotter always in the mirror. Book I has a chapter on it, “The pact before you move”.
I do, so I can hear a stop. But the real work happens before the truck moves. Carol and I banned left and right years ago, after a radio and a utility post. Say driver side and passenger side, and agree on the words first. If your spotter leaves the mirror, you stop.
Yes, with a routine. Park and brake every time you step out, a towel or a cone where the back corner should end up, small moves, and as many looks as it takes. Book I has a chapter called “Backing in solo”.
Short trailers react faster. A loaded mulch trailer beat me in front of my own family once. You need smaller, earlier corrections and shorter moves. Book III covers it in “Straight Back, Slots, and the Short Trailer”.
I have to, since I hurt my neck in 2019. I learned to back with mirrors only, and I found out I'd never really learned them before. Book III has a chapter on it, “Your Mirrors, and the Camera”. If turning your head or back hurts, or you have doubts about your vision for driving, talk to your doctor.
I do. Move your hand toward where you want the back of the trailer to go. Book III starts with why that works, in “How a Trailer Really Turns”.
Do all your prep in the staging area first. If it goes crooked, pull up and let the next truck go. Nobody remembers you for that. Book I covers the line, and Book III covers the backing, launching and loading.
Off the gas. No hard braking with the truck. Wheel steady. Trailer brakes with the manual control only if your controller's manual says so. Slow down and stop somewhere safe. Never speed up to get out of it. Book II explains why sway starts and how to set up your rig to lower the risk, by your own manuals. No book can promise it won't happen.
A salesman once told me my half-ton was fine. The public scale said my rear axle was over. Your door placard, your owner's manual and a scale ticket outrank anybody's opinion, mine too. Book II has “Trust the Sticker” and “The Ticket Doesn't Guess”.
Back In Without Yelling and Tow Steady are sold on their own. The Trailer Backing Guide comes only in the collection of 3 books.
Your own truck and trailer, your manuals, a few cones or anything you can see in a mirror, a towel to mark the ground, and an empty lot. That's how I still practice every spring.
Read the first chapter at the kitchen table. Then take some cones to an empty lot before the season starts. The lawn chairs will be there either way.
