There’s a claim on FB that it is easier to back a car into a parking space because of more turning radius. I say the turning radius is fixed by the geometry of the car, so it doesn’t matter. What’s the SD facts on this?
Unless I’m missing something, you seem to be right. Whatever prevents the tires from rotating beyond a certain point would be independent of the direction they’re moving.
The rear of a front wheel drive car will tend to rotate around the center of the rear axle because the inside tire can stay in place, and in theory the rear wheels could rotate in opposite directions. The front wheels have to both move forward and tend to track along the curve. This is apparent with trailers, but I haven’t noticed much effect in cars.
It is not because of the turning radius but the way the car lines up with the spot. When you nose in the non turning wheels follow the angle of front wheels and make it easy to get the car in at an angle. When you back in you basically pivot on the rear wheel until you are aligned and back straight into the spot.
This is why a Forklift has rear wheel steering
Sorry if my explanation is not clear, just try it out in an empty parking lot and you will see
Capt
The end of the car with the steered wheels can move greater distances laterally for each measure of longitudinal motion. So, you put the back wheels into a parallel parking space first because it’s easier to move the front around.
The difference is much more noticible when doing parallel parking.
If your target space is say a meter (3 feet) longer than your vehicle you can back in with a single movement (plus edge forward to straighten the wheels). This would be difficult, if not impossible to execute if you drove into the space forwards
The turn radius of the rear wheels is shorter than the front wheels. That’s why you parallel park.
