This site used to be for happy mutants. No harm no foul, amirite?
1 Like
Yeah, no, not when youâre actively endangering people.
I might agree with you if the guy was some kind of wizard of backwards driving, but since he was in fact veering across the lines and almost hit a pedestrian, this is no more acceptable than âhaha look at that drunk guy try to drive, what a happy mutant!â
7 Likes
you have to get good somehowâŠhe is still in the learning phase. 
A friend of my brother worked at a garage where, for a lark, they took a Mini Van with back and side windows, took the body off, and replaced it the other way around. Apparently, the shape of the Mini Van makes this quite easy to do, and the wheel arches are pretty much the same front and back. The small mini headlights could be fitted into the reverse light clusters and vice-versa. So, you ended up with something that was road legal but looked like it was going in reverse. I bet it completely messed your head when you saw it in the mirror.
All good urban myths start off with âa friend of my brotherâŠâ, and, no, I never saw the thing, so I wonât be deeply upset if you donât take my word for it.
3 Likes
This trick also makes an appearance in the stunt car show at Disney Hollywood Studios.
I once was a passenger in a car that was driven ~30 miles backwards. We were at Boy Scout camp, and my friendâs father who was going to drive us back had one of those early-60s Fords with a pushbutton transmission. The thing jammed, and he couldnât get it into any of the forward gears so he drove it home backwards and we rode in the back seat looking out to tell him which way to go.
Iâve also driven about 20 miles with a car stuck in second gear, back when I learned to drive a stick. My brother-in-law was about the 5th owner of a car that had been converted from a column-shifter to a floor-shifter, and it came with a hammer kept under the driverâs seat in case you had to get out and unjam the gear linkages. Visited a friend out in the hills, got stuck in reverse in their driveway, unjammed that, got from first into second and then stuck. Crawled up and down hills, got back to town, slid through the stopsigns, the stoplight was green, got home. Car died the rest of the way a week or two later.
1 Like
The police just need to wait for the guy to post his âawsum backward drive thru L.A.â on his youtube channel.
1 Like
The list of broken laws is extensive.
First, this will be the easiest âreckless drivingâ case in the history of California.
Section 23103, â[a]ny person who drives any vehicle upon a highway in willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property is guilty of reckless driving."
Itâs also an obvoius violation of the âreasonable or prudentâ standard of the Basic Speed Law.
Section 22350. No person shall drive a vehicle upon a highway at a speed greater than is reasonable or prudent having due regard for weather, visibility, the traffic on, and the surface and width of, the highway, and in no event at a speed which endangers the safety of persons or property. "
If anyone along the route suffered any sort of damage, winning a civil suit against this joker will be ridiculously easy.
âReckless driving, unsafe speed, crossing double-yellow lines, failure to drive on the right half of the roadway,â LAPD Sgt. Tito Mariano said.
I got the first two. I also like the idea of a long list of equipment failure citations: red lights in the front, mirrors points the wrong way, etc.
Almost 20 years ago I actually did something similar as a 19 year old kid.
Small rural town with only one tow truck. Transmission was messed up on my car and I needed to get it to the shop as I was going on a trip 2 days later. Couldnât get ahold of the tow truck operator for a few hours. Tried driving the car the 4 miles to the shop but a block down the road the transmission went completely. Actually just the forward transmission, I could still drive backwards. Desperate I got my neighbor to follow me to the shop, driving in reverse. Because of the layout of my town though I was able to mostly go down alleys with plenty of visibility. I also drove at a much slower speed than this maniac.
1 Like
Hmm. I wonder. âHaving due regard for weather, visibility, the traffic on, and the surface and width of, the highwayâŠâ But no mention on whether itâs a prudent engine speed. Youâre probably never going to exceed 20 mph in reverse without winding up the engine to 6,000 RPM or so. The gear just ainât that tall.
Iâm pretty sure you are bustable at 2 mph when youâre obviously joyriding and potentially creating a hazard.
Which is another bustable offense: âcreating a hazardâ is all over the CVC.
Well, soitenly. I was just addressing the Basic Speed Law.
You mean⊠that Boardwalk piece⊠was�
Aw, shit.
My friend had a story of man relative that was frustrated that his wife was reticent to back up the family car. He taught her a lesson by driving in reverse to the next town over. Iâm sure that showed her.
Iâve done sort of the opposite - when my 20±year-old van was dying, the transmission stopped being willing to go into reverse, the cost of a new transmission would be higher than the van would be worth, and California has a program to buy back old presumably-polluting vehicles (though Iâd been able to get it to pass inspection the previous year.) The catch was you had to get it to the official junkyard under its own power, in the daytime, so I picked a quiet part of the middle of the afternoon and limped it along mostly-back roads, hoping it wouldnât hit too many red lights, and it did make it all the way.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
