If i wrote about how many mistakes are possible it would run to a dozen pages and far too much to take in, that’s what your training period is about.
They won’t just train you and throw you in the deep end with no back up or communication, they ain’t daft.
In truth, forget everything you thought you ever knew about trucks, because what you are about to embark upon is in a different ball park completely, its like low loaders or cranes recovery work or anything else specialised, except that your load is both valuable and fragile and sticks out both ends and on top but not the sides.
Your biggest enemy is trees.
In many ways you might as well have passed your HGV test yesterday, except (assuming you are issued a typical 11+ type design of transporter) the vehicle you are going to drive requires real seat of the pants feel to keep it under control.
When you start on your own you will be tempted to put some of the heaviest and longest vehicles at the two extremes of the vehicle to, as it were, get rid of them, this will make an already awkward to control outfit multiple times worse, you arn’t driving a normal artic, the prime mover will indeed be a standard low cabbed tractor unit, but the towing hitch is behind the drive axle (lorry and drag design) and the trailer wheels are only just behind the centre line of the trailer body, so that inherantly stable semi trailer artic combination does not apply.
You need weight over the drive axle, both on the prime mover and on the front of the trailer whenever possible…so when on a multi drop and you have one heavy vehicle left for your last drop, do not not just drive onto the back of the trailer, even a 1500kg car perched on the back of an otherwise empty outfit will make it handle like an imbalanced Landrover and caravan.
If you get issued a Volvo tractor, just wait till you get a new set of drive axle tyres fitted…my mate described it best once as trying to drive a plate of spaguetti, Scanias are much more stable especially the twin steer versions.