Why is it so difficult to drive backward in a straight line?
In: Engineering
Pull a rope. It’s easy to keep it straight.
Push a rope. It’s much harder.
Your front wheels hand the steering, so thats where all of your steering forces are being applied.
Imagine the rest of the car a rope, and that’s why its so hard to drive.
Forklifts have their wheels that steer on the back to make backing up easier (particularly when you have a load) which is why it takes training and certification to be able to drive one because driving one forwards is like driving a car backwards.
Add a trailer to your car and reversing gets even more complicated because you added more lengths to the rope.
And as others have said, you spend a lot more time driving forward than backwards.
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