Most people who have driven in my neighborhood know that if they want to point down my street, they can make a series of 3 right turns and be pointing down my street.
Most people who have driven in my neighborhood and have even a teensy grasp of the mechanics of moving things, would not try to back a very long vehicle into my street.
I live on a short street. There are only 2 houses on my street. Mine is the one right next to where stupid happened just now.
This is a picture of where I live. I live at the purple dot. As you can see, there are 3 big arrows. They indicate which way the hills go. They all go up, just in 2 different directions. My street goes in a totally different direction than the other two AND it’s steeper. The transition from my street to the one on the right is a very wide turn though - hugely wide - so if for some reason you wanted to back from my street onto that one, it’d be no problem. The other corner is not the same way.
Not only does my street go steeply into a different direction, that Y corner is also kind of difficult and makes it so the entrance to my street is actually ANGLED and STEEP and IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION.
Ergo, don’t try to back up it with a long vehicle. When my boyfriend has to bring his broadcast truck home, he follows the dotted arrows in the series of 3 turns so that he’s pointing down my street, before backing into the driveway (which, by the way, goes in another completely different direction, steeply).
So, now that you understand the logistics of my little corner of the world…
I had just woken up from an unintentional nap (translated: I fell asleep doing homework - again). I made a quick phone call but was still kind of bleary brained so when my dogs started making funny noises at the window, it didn’t register very well in my mind. I heard mechanical sounds coming from outside but I couldn’t figure out what the hell they were.
I knew Iggy would need to go outside so I hooked him up to the leash and took him out front. I was thrust into wakefulness when I saw through the dark, a long moving truck, with a car on a trailer at the back.
The person driving the truck was trying to back up my street. Now, I did some quick mental gymnastics and determined that this is either someone lost or someone new to the neighborhood and lost. A resident would never attempt what he was attempting. Someone new to the neighborhood wouldn’t be moving in near me since none of the houses that require my street have gone up for sale in decades, except mine.
So, I determined that some directions would be in order and I started walking down my driveway.
As I walked, he continued to attempt to back up, pull forward, back up, pull forward. Just as I got to the end of my driveway, he must have gotten annoyed because he just kept backing up. The car trailer, however, did not. The steep change of directions caused the trailer to continue turning. I could hear crunch, crunch, crunch as he kept going. Just as I reached the street that he was on, I heard CRACK.
He pulled to the side of the road, the trailer creaking and groaning as he went. I walked along the passenger side, just in case he decided to give it another try. Then I had to walk along the driver side to get back to the trailer, because he had already gotten out and walked back.
With the direction my dog and I came from, he probably assumed that I came from the house he was now parked in front of.
He looked up at me appolegetically and said (while holding the broken trailer connector in his hand), “I’m going to be here a while,* I don’t think this is working*.” :smack:
So of course I told him that when he is ready to go again, if he’s trying to point DOWN my street, he needs to go up , turn right, turn right, turn right, and he’ll be pointing down my street. He thanked me and I went home. I managed to contain the hysterical laughter until I got back in the house but it wasn’t easy.
I wonder what he’s going to say to the rental company. “I made it all the way there but just as I reached the neighborhood, the trailer just BROKE!”