Probably the biggest challenge in getting your driver’s license, and then for the remainder of your driving career, is parallel parking. My wife, bless her heart, passed her driving test long ago, but to her parallel parking is to be avoided at all costs. For myself, it is a challenge I cannot resist, even if I am not successful.
The good news is that help is on the way. It might not be soon, however one of the divisions of Hyundai, Hyundai Mobis, has developed a steering system that allows a four wheel vehicle to make almost any maneuver.
One of the maneuvers is “zero-turn”, much like many new lawn mowers, however what about being able to “crab walk”, where all four wheels are perpendicular to the curb and you basically slide into a parking spot. Or “diagonal driving”, where all four wheels turn at 45 degrees. Or what Mobis calls the “pivot turn”, where the driver picks any point as an axis of rotation.
The article goes into detail as to how these turns are made while maintaining braking and other key elements of a vehicle’s dynamics. And there are several photos that you will have to look at more than once.
Let’s just hope that if these features become standard that they are not disallowed during a driving test. – Dr. Tom
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