Confession of bad parking

Twomed wrote:
Key word here GOAL

Get
Out
And
Look

:)

I like this....
It doesn't mean you won't hit anything but, it certainly lowers your chances.

There is no substitute for getting out and seeing it yourself. No person or camera can give you the same thing. I hope everything goes well with the repairs.

You know the common wisdom for easy divorce?
"Buy big RV and let your spouse help to park it"

ricelake922 wrote:
Hello. I have a 1996 Monaco Dynasty and am staying at a campground to spend time with my grandchildren. The site is very steep and I relied on my partner to assist me to back the RV into the site. Well I have learned from this experience as I made the huge mistake of turning the RV into a hill that resulted in damage to the front driver's side. Luckily I am taking the RV to a body shop on Monday as they are taking out all the rails holding the storage compartments out as well as the undercarriage for all areas mentioned are rusted out. Anyway I have learned from my backing in experience that I will get out of the RV prior to backing in and come up with a plan of my own rather than to listen to a partner who is standing at the back of RV directing me and not looking at what is happening out front as well. I now think that the person directing me is there just to make sure I am not hitting a tree at the side or back. I will from now on that if the parking is not working as I had planned is to stop...get out..and rethink. Anyway. ..expensive lesson. I thought I would feel better coming clean with my confession of stupidly but I dont. Stupid...stupid...mistake. Thank you for listening.

That's a lesson hard learned, we learned that same lesson in a glass station one dark night.
Ya live, ya learn, what doesn't kill ya, should make you smarter.

oops... I hit quote instead of edit.

Your confession has been heard, you are absolved and forgiven, but you must repair the damage and resolve never to do THAT again, nor should you blame your partner, who was not driving, after all.

One thing that has helped me when backing up without a spotter, is that I have three large bright red rubber flexible cones (about 2 ft. tall) that I will place at the back of the spot that I want to back into.

Since my rear camera will adjust, I put it at the 'hitch view' and put a cone at the middle at the end of the spot I'm trying to back into. The other two go 5 ft. on either side of that centered red cone.

I have no problem getting out two or three times to MAKE SURE that I'm doing it right. This cone set-up has really helped me. I now feel confident backing up because I can see my ultimate ending spot with the cones.

I know anything can happen so I try to minimize that as much as possible.

Quick story, I was traveling from Florida to Georgia and put the campgrounds address in my Nav. I accidentally put in NE 45th Ave. instead of NW 45th Ave at the beginning of the street name.

The Nav took me down a heavily treed fairly narrow country road. Once I made my turn, I realized that something was wrong and there was NO WHERE to turn around the big-rig. Finally, I see a fairly wide driveway on my right that had 'entrance fencing' but it still looked doable. It just so happens that the owner was pulling out as I was driving down the road very slowly. I waved him to stop and got out to ask directions, that's when I realized my error.

I asked him if it was OK to turn around in his driveway, he said "sure". So, I unhook the Honda, park it to the side with the flashers on. I pull past the driveway so that I can then reverse into his driveway. I pull out my three red cones putting one at the mailbox and the other two at the point where the entrance fencing narrows. That way, I could see the narrow points better.

Shockingly, I just fit without an inch to spare. As I was backing in, the front of the coach was swinging towards the fence across the street from this driveway. My front bumper was so close to the fence that a person could not have walked between the bumper and the fence. It was just enough room for me to complete my turn. I was lucky. The cones helped tremendously as I had no one to help me.


Safe travels,
MM.

Key word here GOAL

Get
Out
And
Look

:)

Your not the first one. If there is only 1 person to help you back in it is hard to see every corner. The driver can't see the front corners of the MH while backing in. I had 3 people helping me back into a very tight spot with my MH I was going slow when I herd an noise I had hit a rod across the street that a solar light was on. Bent the rod but did no damage to the MH. The spotter at the back was watching the back and didn't see the rod. By the time we got set up and slides open the BR slide was about 1 ft. from the camper next to us. As I stated very tight spot.

Even thought I THINK I can do most anything, when backing our unit, I have at least 1 person outside with our two way radios and I do a walk around first. I go extremely slow and sometimes hope out a time or two to see how things are progressing.

I know it may be over kill, but I am poor and can't afford any added expenses due to my screw ups.

Good luck with the repairs.