The HGV Reversing Exercise Explained, Cone by Cone

Where the exercise fits in the test

The practical test starts off road. Before you take the vehicle onto the road you do the reversing exercise and, on most tests, the uncoupling and recoupling exercise if you are driving an articulated vehicle. Only once that is done do you go out for roughly an hour of road driving. It is a sensible order: the examiner wants to know you can place a large vehicle accurately before you take it into traffic.

The layout you will face

Cones mark a start position, a bay and a line at the rear of the bay. You begin with the front of the vehicle level with the start cone, drive forward and to one side, then reverse in a broad S shape so that the vehicle finishes straight inside the bay with its rear close to the line. The dimensions are set from the length of your vehicle, so the exercise is proportionally the same whether you are in a 7.5 tonne rigid or a 16.5 metre artic.

The rigid reverse

In a Category C rigid the vehicle follows the steering directly, which makes the geometry easy to picture but punishes late correction. The technique we teach in Glasgow is to work in three phases. Phase one, get the swing on early and generously; most failures come from being too timid at the start and running out of room. Phase two, straighten as the bay opens up in your nearside mirror. Phase three, creep the last few metres with the vehicle already straight, checking the line in both mirrors.

• Set the mirrors before you move; you cannot fix a bad mirror halfway through.
• Idle speed only, feet doing almost nothing, hands doing the work.
• If you cannot see the line, stop and get out and look, that is allowed and is not a fault.
• One clean shunt beats three panicky ones.

The articulated reverse

An artic reverses in the opposite sense: steering right sends the trailer left, and the trailer leads while the unit follows. That sounds harder and it is, for about two hours, after which most people find it easier than a rigid because the trailer gives you constant feedback. You watch the trailer, not the unit. The moment the trailer starts to move in the direction you want, you begin taking the lock back off, otherwise the angle runs away and you jackknife.

The rule of thumb we teach on C+E: chase the trailer with the unit. As soon as the trailer is where you want it, steer to put the unit back in line behind it.

Uncoupling and recoupling

On a C+E test you also uncouple the trailer and couple it back up, and this is a sequence the examiner expects to see done in a set order: park in line, apply trailer brake, lower the legs, disconnect the airlines and electrical suzies, release the fifth wheel, drive out slowly, then reverse the whole thing back together and prove the coupling with a tug test. Miss the tug test and you fail, however tidy the rest was. It is a sequence, so it is learnable, and we drill it until it is automatic.

How to practise when you cannot practise

You cannot take a lorry home, so the useful preparation between training days is mental rehearsal. Walk the sequence in your head, out loud if you can, naming each mirror check. It sounds daft; it works, and it is the single most common piece of homework we set trainees in the evenings of a training week.

How much practice you actually get

Our Category C course at £1,695 includes 16 hours of in vehicle tuition, and the C+E course at £2,895 includes 25 hours, a good share of which is spent on the manoeuvring area at the start of the week. Training is one to one or one to two, so you are behind the wheel rather than watching from a bench.