Looks like there was a guy in the background directing his wheels early on. We see the “turn the wheel” gesture followed by a “you’re good” once he was lined up.
I also wondered why backwards. Maybe he wanted to be facing up if the boards failed halfway through? It seems like there was plenty of room to turn around if he wanted. I also note that he wasn’t wearing his seatbelt so safety may not have been a top priority.
I also agree that there was less flex than I was expecting, but those boards weren’t just 2x4s, they were more like small tree trunks. That van might be pretty light due to a lack of safety systems and a cheap/light engine and transmission.
It is discussion threads like this one, right here, that remind me why I absolutely love when we get posts like this on Boing Boing. You Happy Mutants are awesome.
Have always been impressed by the skills of industrial drivers. Was in the loading bay of a stadium after a concert and was astounded at the speed and maneuvering skills of the folk lift drivers removing seating and then noticed that all the drivers would have a bottle of water upright on the edge of the pallet WTF… I’m assuming money was on the last bottle standing but never saw one fall!!.. There were gradients involved!
This is the opposite of how car suspensions work. Front suspension has “caster” built into it, which means the center line of rotation is slightly behind the centerline of pivot when the springs compress with the weight of the vehicle. This is why the steering wheel straightens out “automatically” when you pull out of a turn and let go of the wheel. Caster is one of the parameters checked and adjusted when you get an alignment done (or set up a car for racing)
Driving in reverse is harder for most people because you lose this natural-feeling benefit. I don’t know why this driver did it this way, but he did have multiple people directing him. I’m not sure why people keep saying otherwise. He makes constant corrections too- look closely at the front wheels as he goes. They come close to slipping off at one point and one of the spotter yells at him to correct.
As someone who has spent much of my life driving machinery of various strange forms in strange situations, I would submit that doing this in reverse is harder in every way. I don’t know why people keep saying otherwise.
You can see the leading wheels just fine going forward by leaning your head out the window or keeping the door open. This is how we, for example, load machinery on flatbeds where tolerances on the ramps are close and the penalty for failure is rolling a $500k tractor off the side off the truck. Nobody does this backwards for any of the reasons suggested in this thread.
Perhaps someone who speaks the language can translate what’s being said and shed some light.
As a driver you can see ONE of the leading wheels this way. But not both.
In this case, with such a narrow surface to stay on, it is important to see both. Which you can do using mirrors if going in reverse. Also, minor adjustments on the steering wheels at the rear, to keep the unsteered leading wheels on track are much easier this way.
With the steering wheels at the front, apart from only having sight of one of them, if the rear wheels should go slightly off track the only way to safely get them back on track is to go into reverse.
Except that both front wheels do the same thing, and the logs are parallel so you don’t need to see both. If the logs aren’t parallel, you won’t make it anyway.
Again- while never having done this exact thing, I’ve driven a lot of vehicles up narrow ramps, and you’d never do it in reverse. That makes no part of this easier.
We disagree.
And a thin pole (which appears not to have a flat surface) is not a ramp.
And this guy certainly seemed to know exactly what he was doing and has likely done it more than once before.
He certainly, and confidently, and - presumably with experience - appears to find this way easier.
Welp, this appears to be another BB thread where my life relevant experience is going to be discarded out of hand over everyone’s armchair theories, so I’ll bow out now.
Discarding and disagreeing are different things. I did not ‘discard’ your experience “out of hand”, but take it as you will.
Your ‘relevant life experience’ contrasts with the guy in the video’s experience. Have you driven a minivan across a gap on two non-flat poles?
I made no claim about my own relevant life experience, but 45+ years of operating wheeled vehicles of many kinds in many situations (including ramps) also informed my view.
So very sorry your feelings were hurt.
ETA
It makes the part where you do want to see both wheels, much easier, even if nothing else.
I was thinking for a reason why he would go in backwards, and thought too much about a toy car, which doesn’t have the suspension to help straighten out the wheels. I agree, driving backwards is harder. While my dad can back a boat trailer into tight spots, I don’t like backing into parking spots even.
I suspect then he did it that way because he had done it the other way many times and was showing off that he could do it in reverse as well. It’s a stunt because they could, not because it was easier.
Backing into parking spots is far easier than driving into them, assuming you wish to park vaguely centrally in the bay (I’m talking about perpendicular bays, not angled ones). YMMV where you live, but parking bays here are not generously wide, and the aisles between them do not allow for a long straight run up, but force a sharpish turn to get into a bay.
I regularly see people drive in, realise their car is not parallel to the bay and the back end is almost in the next bay (maybe think for a second that this puts their back end at risk when the party in the next bay leaves) and then back out and drive back in a few times to try to straighten up, which they never quite fully manage. Having the turning wheels at the front of the bay means you can fully control both where the back end ends up and where the front end ends up.
ETA
We always recommend reversing into parking bays whenever possible, as the car is more manoeuvrable
I used to drive a small truck (a Ford Ranger) and occasionally had to park at a building where the parking was all underground and 90% compact only spots. The full size spots were never available. The space between the rows was especially tight as well, if you met someone coming the other way there wasn’t space for both cars to pass, even if they were compact.
I found that backing in was the only way to go. I could stick my tail into the spot and the rotate around with my wheels fully turned, allowing me to squeeze in. It helps that my vehicle was rear wheel drive and allowed me to turn the front wheels almost 90 degrees.
There’s a reason that truck drivers back up into the loading dock. It’s probably related to maneuverability. Well, that and the fact that the cargo is unloaded from the rear of the vehicle.
Why didn’t the logs flex more?
→ Chinese wood; the kind that is growing under very chemical atmosphere and get some super power.
or
→ Chinese car, weighting about 200 kg maximum.
or both.
