Reversing onto a driveway....HELP!

[JustBonnie]

I must be the worst driver in the world . Have had my licence for over a year but have always tried to avoid reversing as i'm just not very good at it. Worked ok where we used to live as we didn't have a drive so it was just a case of pulling up on the road.

We recently moved to our new house that has a long, narrow drive which slopes steeply uphill (on a very busy road). For the life of me I can't get to grips with reversing on or off and it's making my life a nightmare. Tried to reverse on again today and have got sort of stuck at an angle and chipped my wing mirror. What makes it worse is that my dh insisted we needed a bigger car so we've now sold my astra and have an MPV!! I couldn't manage the drive before so it's even worse now

Thing is if I just drive on forwards I can't go out again if I need to as it's far to dangerous to reverse out with my two dd's in the back.

This probably sounds like a really stupid problem and dh can't understand why i'm finding it so difficult but it's really starting to get me down. (not to mention the embarassment of the neighbours seeing me getting stuck on my own driveway!!!) Any tips or suggestions to master this manoevre please?

practice reversing in a car park at night and in tme you will get better

thats the only thing i can suggest

go to a carpark at night and just practise reversing
you will get there eventually

also when you get a bit better
always reverse into a car parking spot

easier to get out imo
good luck

thanks for your replies. I have tried practising in a car park and i'm not too bad but it's just the bloody drive. Its a combination of it being on a busy, fast road near a bend (i have to pull over to the other side of the road and try and reverse on before anything comes), there's a wall on one side and a big drop on the other where the neighbours driveway is adjacent to ours but lower and the fact that by the time I get back home the kids are usually playing up like crazy in the back making it really hard to concentrate.

I suppose there is no magical answer though except to practice! Sometimes life was so much easier when I used to get the bus

Is there space to make a turning area at the top? (Could be done quickly and cheaply with gravel). Otherwise you could get a turntable like they showed on one of the Property Ladder programmes (but v. expensive IIRC, but so is pranging your car.)

i was thinking about one of those turntable things but doubt very much if we could afford it. The only way we'd have room to turn is to knock down the front wall and get rid of the front lawn and either gravel or pave. This is a long term plan but there are so many other things to pay for (christmas being one) that we really can't afford it at the moment. I'm even contemplating parking in the side street down the road!

Could you knock down part of the wall, temporarily, just to widen the space for you to get through?

JanH, that sounds like a good (cheap) solution. I'll def run that one past dh when he gets home. I just wish he'd understand my difficulty as he can do it with his eyes shut....... I could always nip out there now with the sledge hammer while he's still at work I suppose

Apart from practicing yourself how about a one on one lesson with an instructor. Call them and explain the situation and see if they will take you out to just concentrate on reversing. You need constructive support here, not a partner who just can't see what the problem is. I consider myself a good driver until DH gets in the car with me. He's such a terrible passenger it makes me nervous and I drive like a twit. Without him there I'm perfect

Sympathy for you Bonnie as we have this too. DH can whizz up the drive in reverse, but every time I try, I end up halfway up the bank and wedged in! I have to pull on forwards, and back off, but luckily we are in a very quiet road and I have been lucky so far. However, we are hiring a digger this weekend (been in house over a year), to dig up a messy bit of grass at the front and make a gravel turning area!

I guess it's a bit like parallell parking isn't it - I can't do it to save my life, and often pay to park in a car park when I go to visit a friend in the middle of town - but I'm sure if I was doing it every day, I'd be a dab hand!

so you have to pull over to the right hand side of the road and reverse in that way?

I hate reversing into parking spaces this way - I can only do it when the space is on the left so I can see what I'm doing. If I lived where you do I'd try and approach from the other direction so I could be the right way round.

I agree it's practice - I stop a couple of metres in front of the space and reverse, then, when the corner of the car I'm parking next to is aligned with my rear pillar I drive at full lock till I'm straight in the space, then undo the lock and roll straight backwards.
Worth practising in a car park so you know where the 'turning point' is on your car - my driving instructor used to put a felt-tip mark on the window for me, which is worth a go.

Message withdrawn

Also make sure your wing mirrors are in the right position and use those. Much easier IMO.

JustBonnie - can you explain where the dangerous bend is.At the moment, I'm visualising turning left round a bend, yours/neighbour's house immediately after bend on left, and you nipping over to the RH side and reversing into your drive. Sounds absolutely terrifying, am I missing something?

catinthehat, well you're nearly right. We're not right on the bend i suppose but it's a fast road and as soon as you spot a car it's sort of on top of you IYSWIM. I have to pull out onto the other side of the road to be able to reverse in, yes. It is really scary and I hate it but i've had some great suggestions on here so will try some of those, thanks! (or i could always move!) Also good to know there are others who have similar problems and i'm not on my own

Well if its like that, I'd almost approach it in 2 stages. 1) reversing across the road, which should be quick & dirty, so you get most of the vehicle off the road, and on the pavement, but not getting too worked up about getting yr wing mirrors bent - because they won't be back far enough to hit your wall yet. Only a bit of the front of the vehicle will be on the road now, so there s/b enough space for cars to whizz past, and the children will be off the road and not in the line of fire.
Stop, take deep breaths, calm down, say prayer to your spiritual leader etc, then follow
2)the Mrs Badger method - except you'll only have to tweak the car forward and back a little bit,just to line the vehicle up perfectly for thenext bit past the gate post, rather than doing the full lock thing. If you have a kerb to get the front wheels over, give the car a bit more throttle/acceleration/oomph (whatever you call it) and even more if you have to reverse up a bit of a hill.

I think you'll do it well if you break it down into at least 2 and possibly more stages, think about it carefully in advance, and realise that DH is just you but with a few more years driving experience, and he probably didn't have children in the back when he was working on this particular challenge.
No guts no glory.

Agree with Voluptua -- call round local driving schools and find one who will give you a lesson (or series of lessons if that's what it takes)devoted to reversing onto your driveway

And when the road is very busy, or you feel stressed about it - park in the side street! Why not?

It does sound a horrible manouvre.

I think getting a driving instructor to help you is a v good idea.

Gosh this made me laugh (sorry). I will soon have exactly the same problem! In fact, dh made me reverse onto the drive to prove I could before he would put an offer in on the house!

It's worth putting on your hazard lights when you are attempting your driveway challenge . I find that by doing this, the motorists give you a bit more time to do the manouvre.

Agree with "get a 1 off lesson from a professional" - this will boost your confidence

catinthehat, that sounds like a good method. I try to rush the whole thing as I'm on the wrong side of the road and want to get over as quickly as possible and that's why i end up at the wrong angle. I think i'll try doing it in two stages, problem is though i've got a big car and the pavement is only very narrow so i'll still be sticking out quite a lot.

Beckybrastraps, I wish I'd given the driveway a bit more thought before we put the offer in! I loved the house so much I didn't really think about the nightmare that was waiting for me!

I've got to take my daughter to playschool tomorrow and then go back out to get her so I'll HAVE to try it again in the morning. If I don't improve soon I think a driving lesson or two is the only answer. Oh the shame!!!

For what it's worth I reckong reversing up a hill is much more difficult than down so if I was you I'd be happier driving up the driveway forwards and reversing out.
We had this where we used to live (and where my mother lives now) and it was a nightmare. Even though we had a double garage and therefore the spaces in front and manouevring space, people would sometimes park in one of our spaces 9angry] as it was a mews style set up and if they did I had to reverse down a track with built up retaining walls on either side and about 2 inches on either side of the wing mirrors. DH of course could do this blindfolded while reading the paper at speed and into the busy main road. Me? I'd be huffing and puffing and snaking from side to side. Nightmare.