,

[reddog24]

.

[paulcardoza]

Lessons are terrific, but nothing beats practice. As others have suggested, frequent shorter drives are valuable for learning!!!!

[RVnRobin]

One thing I didn't see mentioned in the helpful posts, is learning the "orientation" of your rig. In a class A, you are sitting on top of your front axel or just ahead of it. And, you are sitting at a point further above the road surface. Find a parking lot with a long straight line painted on the surface, park with the tires at the edge of the line, then while sitting in the drivers seat identify a spot on the bottom edge of the windshield where it lines up with the painted line. This will give you an easily identifiable "maximum to the right" when driving straight before hitting the shoulder. Then do the same for orienting on curves. These two spots will help you keep it on the road. It takes a steady hand, some time, and practice, to learn about where you are sitting when driving the big rigs.

[Lowsuv]

My lifetime experience is that there are ways to engineer better handling rigs .
There are posters that will claim a 36 footer handles as well as a 25 footer .
In stock form that is contrary to physics .
I owned a 36 foot Beaver diesel pusher .
At 12.5 feet tall it was susceptible in high wind conditions to road wander .
I am an active porsche club member with track and autocross time .
We traded down to a 21T trailer towed by a 9200 # gvw diesel pickup to get better handling .
I load the tongue weight to 987 # and my pickup weighs about 8600 # loaded while towing .
This allows us to be very mobile and my wife does not mind spelling me so I can get a nap in the middle of a long travel day .
There are plenty of macho's saying they are the best driver . Maybe they are .
But I want an RV that handles great so that my wife and kids can drive it without fear .
It can be done .
Heavy 15 % tongue weight really works ...
9200 # gvw towing 7200 # GVW handles better than 7200 # GVW towing 9200# gvw ...
There are all kinds of aftermarket handling parts available for motorhomes .
If I was to keep my motorhome I would make all of those changes until it worked .

[navegator]

The problem is simple, driving a "C" is from a point of view of the road that is farther away from the center line, since the C class has a wider "house" part than a coach as seen from the drivers point of view.

The "coach" has the same with but the driver sits closer to the center line of the road, and thus at the begining she or he tends to drive farther to the right side of the road and therefore go off pavement, only driving the rig will help with the experience that the driver needs to have in order to gage the distance that the coach has to have on the roads side to side.

The other thing that you both need to remember is to slow down a little at the begining until both of you have more experience and are more comfortable with the coach.

navegator

[2gypsies1]

First of all, don't sit in a booth. They are not the safest place. Sit in the front seat and use the shoulder seat belt.

It sounds like this was hubby's first drive with your new motorhome and perhaps he was going too fast for the road conditions or was distracted in some way. Hopefully, he has learned from this or is this typical of his driving? If so, he needs the driving lessons. If you both can talk it out and understand why he went off the road more than likely it won't happen again. He needs to take some responsibility for the fear this has instilled in you.

You also stated that you had driven your smaller RV. Are you willing to take lessons and drive the bigger one? Perhaps you need to get it across to your husband that you need to drive this one, also, to gain confidence. Good luck.

[tatest]

For one of the couples in our local RV club, her not being able to get comfortable with the ride in a 36-foot A meant trading it for a 29-foot C, which they continued to use until she died.

I went through this with mt wife too, she was OK in the cab of a C, but uncomfortable, frightened. most of the time, sitting up higher in the big open space of an A. She also could not sit in the front row of a motorcoach, unless behind the driver. The other side, nothing in front but the window, she couldn't do it. When we got a minivan, it took almost a year for her to get used to sitting that far forward, though no problems when she was driving.

Part of the problem can be fear of open spaces, or fear of falling. Another part is that the motions are different than those in passenger seat of a car.

You can address the latter problem by trying a seat, sofa, lounge, dinette, further back in the coach, more centered in the wheelbase. This doesn't work for everyone, as not seeing forward out the windshield can contribute to motion sickness.

I suggest you just keep trying, see if you can become accustomed. An even better approach might be to syart driving the thing yourself, as the sense of being in control makes a lot of fear/comfort issues go away.

[woodgeezer]

Look the other way around. You had a road incident. A little wiggle and shaking, you got thrown around, but no one was hurt and no damage was done. You came through like a trooper.

Think about strapping in at the front and watching out for some hazards, or problems, stay alert to the driving for awhile, until you are comfortable again. Remember, you may be the big dog in the contact, so you will likely come out on the better end.

If everytime you have a close call, you won't ride again, you are never going to ride again. Personally, every time I go out with the coach, and a haul trailer, I remember the time I had a foursome, stop on a freeway with smoking brakes from seventy to zero, way quicker than I could stop. I hit the horn and moved to the left and watched the "flagger" run out of the way. I stopped and ran back and learned the driver was confused, with the flagger there and stomped on his brakes. A 6% grade didn't help. Now, I am extra conscious of the traffic, but it hasn't stopped me traveling. You need to think that way too.

[noe-place]

It's like learning anything new. We have to practice. I've been playing golf for over 50yrs and I still don't get the ball in the hole every time. Good luck and don't give up on your MH. :B

[Executive45]

From reading some of the postings here, I'm not sure I even want to get back in my coach...:E

Your DW messed up by drifting onto the shoulder...he over corrected and went into a deep drift swerve...I get that...first, why did he drift off the shoulder? Not paying attention, driving too fast, going around a curve, texting..? If he is usually a good driver you can overcome this fear...if not, you might be in trouble.

On to your "issue"...these boxes are pretty long compared to a car, so the further back you are the more you "feel" changes of direction. Think of a tail wagging the dog...because you were halfway back you felt the coach action more than you would have up front. Also, you were in the booth dinette which is not a body forming as the front seat. Secondly, remember you are over the steer wheels so things will "feel" different in turning. Finally, the passenger's view is much different than the driver's. I'm pretty good at knowing the limits of my coach and prefer to hug the shoulder line. This drove my DW nuts! One day she complained and I now move closer to the center line to give her some comfort. It does look different from the passenger's perspective. Easy advice I gave her was to look in the mirrors. She can easily tell how far I really am from the white line. It's worked for her and might for you.

As for the DH, and you too, my advice would be to plan further ahead, slow down to a comfortable speed and try it out, but sit up front where the "sway" is less noticeable and you have a shoulder harness.......good luck...Dennis

[doxiemom11]

My DH and I also purchased our first coach almost 4 years ago. DH had driven some larger trucks, but never a motorhome. Ours is a wide body model. Following him home that first day when we picked it up, he was right on the edge on the right side of the lane. He gradually adjusted after having a couple of close calls with the ditch. Tell DH what helped him was -- in a car you sit behind the front tire and inside of that tire. In the motorhome you sit on top of the front tire -- place yourself on the road where you want the left tire to be.

After the first year, I still do not like riding in the motorhome. We now have another vehicle and I drive that behind the coach. The coach has a trailer with a motorcycle, scooter and toolboxes behind it, so we don't tow the Jeep. He is much better at comfortably driving the coach now -- your DH just needs practice until he is confident that he is in control.

[wbwood]

reddog24 wrote:
I was wearing my seat belt in the booth but it was a pretty big swerve.

Sit in the front seat with your seatbelt on.

[frankdamp]

Go talk to your local school district and see if any of their drivers would be interested in giving lessons. These older ladies (at least in our district) drive 45-foot coaches filled with 70 or more screaming kids though residential neighborhoods' narrow streets twice a day.

I was fortunate that, after getting bored with retirement from Boeing, I took a job as a coach operator with our county transit agency. It took only about 3 days (12 hours of instruction) before I got my CDL. The next day, I was horsing a 40-footer through downtown Everett rush hour traffic and it wasn't a big deal after the first 10 minutes of white knuckles.

You just have to learn the new perspective from the driver's seat, and it's really not that difficult. I find our 32-footer is no more difficult than our Kia Sedona. Unfortunately, DW is too short to reach the pedals, since the cheap Flexsteel driver's seat has no vertical adjustment and the equally cheap Ford steering column isn't telescopic. As a result, I do all the driving.

Our transit coaches (Gilligs) had steering column adjustability with two universal joints (one near the floor and one about 24" from the top) and the top section was telescopically adjustable. It could accommodate drivers from 4'6" to 6'8" tall. I wish we could have afforded a Gillig-based DP.

[bob_nestor]

Fear of many things like water, heights, flying, spiders, etc are quite common and easily handled in a singe session with the right approach. I'd look for a Counselor or Psychologist who is experienced in Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP). I had a deadly fear of water for over 30 years, and in one 20 minute session it was eliminated with NLP therapy.

[RVUSA]

You could think of it this way. He kept the rv from going off the road and destroying itself which happens far too often.

[Jayco-noslide]

I don't have a magic solution. Maybe try it on several short trips and work up to bigger ones. Take it really slow and don't worry about who's behind. But, then if you are really uncomfortable, maybe a big MH isn't for you. I have a friend who quit after 2 blow-outs.