My dad was a long haul driver when I was growing up. He taught me two important lessons that have served me well:
1. Never ever go down the hill in a bigger gear than you came up in. In an automatic tranny, this means moving the lever and selecting the right gear to use the engine to do a bit of the work for the brakes.
2. Never pull into an area that you can't/don't want to back out of. My dad had a crew cab dually diesel with a splitter in the rear end (no idea how). He made me pull a yard trailer up a windy logiging road and back down. The catch.... once I went in reverse there was no forward or I failed. I learned to back a trailer pretty quickly