New Driver & CDL Skills · Driver Training VideoSteering & Turn Techniques

Every one of you learned to drive a car with hand-over-hand steering. Hands at nine and three, and when the wheel needs to turn, one hand crosses over the other, regrips, and pulls again. It works fine in a sedan.

A truck's steering wheel is bigger than a car's, and it takes more sustained leverage to turn — not quick little corrections, but steady pulling force. Hand-over-hand means that for a chunk of every turn, one hand is off the wheel, sliding to a new grip.

There's a second problem, and it's about your arms, not just your grip. Hand-over-hand puts a hand and forearm reaching across the face of the wheel on almost every turn. If the airbag fires in a collision, that arm is right where the bag deploys.

The fix is push-pull steering, sometimes called shuffle steering. One hand pulls the wheel down toward the turn while the other slides up its own side of the rim.

Your company standard: hands at nine and three to start every trip. Push-pull steering on every turn, no exceptions, no crossing hands over. No driving with one hand while the other rests on your leg or the door.

This one is easy to write off as small stuff. It isn't. Your hands are the only thing between this truck and whatever's in front of it. Keep them where they belong, keep the grip you were trained to keep, and keep both hands ready for the correction you hope you never need.