The “fifth wheel” parallel parking tool that never hit it big (2018)
hagerty.com
hagerty.com
When you wanted to leave, he would likewise push cars in front or behind you to widen the slot where you were, making it easy for you to pull out.
Over here for some reason it is socially unacceptable to have a car in less than pristine factory condition even after months or years of use, and people will spend thousands to fix the tiniest of scratches. It's crazy just how much of the average person's paycheck goes towards just getting from one place to another.
I don't put it down to people trying to "make space", more down to incompetence IMO.
At least in the UK cars will generally be parked with the handbrake ("emergency brake" in the US AIUI) engaged, meaning that the back wheels will not move, so "nudging" a car will only damage it - if you are "nudging" hard enough to make the stationary wheels slide along tarmac, then that is quite some considerable force. A "little bump" can be enough to cause some expensive damage on modern cars.
So if you are "nudging" another car, I'd put it down to just being a bit of a crap driver who doesn't know what they're doing as you're basically simply driving into things (deliberately or accidentally)
But the point is it's only expensive because people insist on repairing minor cosmetic damage to factory condition.
If people just accepted that when they leave giant objects lying around in public then they're going to get scratched occasionally, it would be cheaper and easier for everyone.
I mean broken lights, broken parking sensors, broken washer jets, damaged number plates etc. Modern bumpers are designed to prevent injuries to pedestrians - it may "look fine" from the outside but internal mounting brackets etc may be bent out of alignment or otherwise damaged. These are all expensive to put right.
As for dashcams, don't these normally switch off while the car is parked?
Where most of HN lives, yeah people go crazy over that crap.
Detroit PD would do their best not to laugh at you if you tried to get them to file a police report for a hit and run if "parking bump" was the nature of the hit. And insurance would probably try and stonewall you either way.
Is that true everywhere in the US? In NYC I saw a lot of cars with rubber bumper guards, presumably to protect against these little "nudges" when parking.
Just over the border in Germany there's a good chance of getting beaten to death if you attempt something like that. Cars are holy here.
Using the handbrake while the car is parked is universal, and in most modern cars the handbrake activates automatically, so it would likely cause actual damage to try and move the other cars with your own. It's also not uncommon for people to put their car in 1st gear on purpose when parked (in my experience, mostly older people who don't fully trust handbrakes) so you'd be unlikely to move those at all.
It wouldn't be legal in any case, although I suppose it would be difficult to be covered by insurance without video evidence. If it happens when you aren't there then tough luck, but if you saw someone touch your car while parking you would go to them, check for damage and if there is indeed any damage you would both fill a constat d'accident (standardised European Accident Statement) to let your insurances sort it out.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkCyepivokQ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n51OdFlOi1o [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA09matde2Y
These are 100% just bad drivers that are lucky the owners of the other cars weren't here (and would have probably fled in that case). As I said, this behaviour results in filling an accident statement if the victim is present (and if actual damage is observed of course).
Having been a Saab owner, a habit I can't break is leaving my car in reverse (my Volvo's reverse gear position is the same as Saab's) with the handbrake on (a fairly universal thing in the UK).
Last week we were driving 43km/s on a road with 50km/s limit. The driver behind us drove 10cm away from our bumper for like 5 minutes, and even though our indicator was on he didn't calculate we will slow down even further to turn right, and made an emergency brake then honked like 10 seconds as he/she was driving away as fast as that car could.
To be fair, it's not remotely as bad as back in Istanbul (what a mess there!), but I expected more from Germany, a country in which people normally love sticking to the rules.
Sometimes I watch this channel to see I'm not the only regular victim of traffic abuse: https://www.youtube.com/c/EureVideosFahrn%C3%BCnftig
In a weird way, it calms me down to see others also having similar problems. Edit: Just opened the latest video and here's another one - https://youtu.be/8mUi2uOzXvs?t=543
The acoustic warning signal is meant to warn other traffic participants of imminent danger - which includes the intend to overtake (outside of towns). There is no fine for that.
> but I expected more from Germany, a country in which people normally love sticking to the rules.
Careful there: Your scenario does not exactly paint you as a hero. Driving deliberately slowly (you mentioned for "like 5 minutes") when higher speeds are possible (both from the street conditions and your vehicle's capabilities), if it hinders others from using legal use of the road (which includes driving at the speed limit), can be construed to be "Nötigung", which is a crime. (The other driver of course could be fined for the same as well)
Honking before overtaking is completely fine, I know my rules. Imminent danger honking is allowed everywhere, even in towns. It's completely not allowed honking to mean "drive faster".
> Careful there: Your scenario does not exactly paint you as a hero
You are missing context, perhaps I should have given the full picture: The road IMHO wasn't suitable to drive at 50km/h. It was curvy with many parked cars on the sides. I wasn't trying to annoy anyone. I even started breaking earlier before turn so it wasn't a harder break, which may have saved us from an accident. Also 43 is nowhere near going "too slow". You need to drive 25 or less, so that it becomes a dangerous situation. The instructors would give you a warning in an exam before failing you if you do it twice, if you drive less than half the limit.
You can also drive 60km/h in a country road (limit 100km/h), and as long as you do not go below 50 for an extended period of time, you don't need to worry. If you are going slowly just to piss someone off, or you are creating a dangerous situation (for example, blocking the flow of the traffic when there's cross-traffic), that's a different story.
Interestingly, automated parallel parking systems are allowed to be used during road licensing tests in the area where I live, to demonstrate parallel parking competency. Same goes for all driver aid systems, including Tesla FSD Beta etc. Bit of a head scratcher for me.
This approach really shows when you use our public roads. People largely either do not know all the rules and best practices, or don't care to follow them.
So I would not correlate the driving test difficulty with the behavior on the roads.
Also, I don't understand why you'd blame the system if anyone gets "trapped" - you have your own eyes, no? Even when you park manually you have to judge if others can still leave. If the computer parks for you in such a way that makes others unable to leave.....then park somewhere else????? What is it with absolving people of personal responsibility all the time.
Or you can just live in a less crowded place so you don't need to parallel park :P
Unfortunately the system in the video still requires a significant bit of space.
1. Thinking about having to parallel park makes sure you are less likely to bump the cars in front and behind. Moving the front in and then swinging the back in seems like a good way to swing the back into another car.
2. Parking wasn't as much of a nightmare in the early 30s. Then WWII happened and that metal would have been an excess. By the 50s it was a "failed" idea.
Having 90 degree car wheels (that can only go 90 degrees at ~rest) combined with the sensors on a modern EV might make it feasible. But I'm not a mechanical engineer so "90 degree car wheels" might have some other feasibility problems, even at rest.
Should be easily possible to get almost the same effect on any RWD car if the engineers feel like designing for it (they don't). It's just a matter of allowing enough steering angle (amount depends on wheelbase). Every forklift made in the last 70yr can pivot about one of the non-steering wheels if you turn the wheel far enough. Some commercial trucks have enough steering angle to get almost the same effect (though they're much longer so the required angle is less) With ABS to brake the pivot point wheel it would be pretty graceful and you'd avoid the "just plowing straight" that forklifts tend to do when you try and crank the steering to max on anything other than pavement.
But there would be a lot of tradeoffs in order to get the range of motion you'd need out of the steering wheels so it makes sense that they don't.
What do you mean by this?
Things will usually fail for the same reason again and agian unless there's been a fundamental change to make it more feasible, like battery tech making the latest round of electric vehicles successful.
I don't mind having a carburetor. I don't mind wind down windows. I don't mind manual gearboxes. But I demand reversing cameras. It lets you know exactly where the car is as you parallel park.
That vehicle is a remarkable technical achievement. It weighs 9,000 pounds, has 1000 horsepower, costs around US$100,000, and goes from 0 to 60 MPH in 3 seconds. It handles well, using an active suspension system to hide some of the problems of moving so much mass around. The stopping distance is rather long, though. CNN calls it "a brilliant execution of a terrible idea."
- Chevy Malibu (IC powered): 3,456 pounds.
- Chevy Bolt: 3,589 pounds.
- Tesla Model 3: 3,550 pounds.
But for trucks:
- Ford F-150, IC-powered: 5,684 pounds
- Ford F-150 Lightning: 6,590 pounds
- Hummer H1 (IC, discontinued): 8,114 pounds.
- Hummer EV: 9,000 pounds.
So, for a car, it's maybe 150 pounds extra for an electric, but for a truck, about 900 extra pounds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steering#Four-wheel_steering
https://www.autoweek.com/car-life/a1871191/four-wheel-steering-demystified/
I have seen large buses with rear-steerable wheels as you describe/link. It makes a little more sense due to the sheer length of the buses.
This way we are left with negative value: We don't know any better, and instead are mentally burdened with speculation, that we have to actively work to not muddle up with what we know later on.
You can do better!
Hell, just creating a linkage that allows it to turn that much and also maintains any kind of reasonable suspension geometry and the required clearances, etc at non-extreme angles would be tricky.
This idea might make more sense today than it did back in the day because you can put a small electric hub-motor on the fifth wheel. Downside is that cars are far heavier now than in the 30s so you'd need a beefier lift for the fifth wheel.
[edit]
Looks like Porsche and Renault offer 4-wheel steering in their high-end cars today, which suggest I am wrong about active traction control completely negating the advantages at high speeds.
At low speeds, the rears steered (a small amount) in the opposite direction, for a tighter turning radius.
At higher speeds the steered (again a small amount) in the SAME direction as the fronts, for more stability.
"The mecanum wheel is an omnidirectional wheel design for a land-based vehicle to move in any direction"
Would be interesting to have a bunch of these extend out from below the car. It would double as an inbuilt jack too.