Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Colin Braun.
So, you borrowed your father-in-law’s boat for your weekend at the cabin, or you bought a RV to take the family camping for this year’s vacation. You got to where you were going and realized you now had to back up to get that trailer where you needed it. Maybe you hadn’t anticipated this (but really, how did you expect to get that boat in the water?), or maybe you didn’t think it would be a problem. How hard could it be? It’s not like you need a special license to do it, and you’ve seen other guys at the boat launch do it, and they look like lesser men than your manly self. Right?
A few years ago, during a break between years at university, I got my truck license and went to work driving a big rig. What man hasn’t wanted to get behind the wheel of one of those machines? They’re big, they’re noisy, you can see over everyone else, they can haul just about anything, and they have a horn to rival a locomotive. The part of the job I didn’t count on when I started was the fact that I would be spending a large amount of my time in reverse while going around corners. I was not exactly what you’d call a natural at backing up. In fact, I almost lost that first job because I had such a hard time. With some coaching, and a lot of nervous practice, I eventually became quite good at it, and now I can back a trailer around corners and into little garage doors on the first shot....more