Why is it so difficult to drive backward in a straight line?
In: Engineering
So many miss an ELI5 explanation.
Everyone has a bike, right? The forks of the bike are not straight, they curve forward a bit.
So, the neck of the bike where the forks slide into, draw a vertical line downward from that. We will call that true vertical.
Now, the forks are bent, so draw another line from the point where they go in the neck, to the ends, where the tire bolts on. It should be a diagonal line from true vertical.
Now imagine that area on the ground, we will call it a patch. It is an area in front of true vertical in a positive direction.
Now for the fuck heads. What happened when you were a kid and turned your handlebars backwards and tried to ride? You fell on your ass, right? That is because now the patch goes in reverse and is a negative patch.
Your car has true vertical and a positive patch as well by using ball joins on the steering arms. It is called caster and used to keep the car going straight. When you drive backwards, you now have negative caster, just like on your bike when turning the handlebars around.
On a side note, anyone that jacked up their care back in the day, had reduced steering. Why? Are you raise the rear, the positive caster shrinks (among other things).
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