For long distance lorry drivers who struggle to reverse. Another driving seat at the rear of a wagon, so drivers can change which end they are driving from.
-- gizmo, Apr 06 2002

1908 Studebaker Electric http://www.swigartmuseum.com/studebak.htm
Quite antiquated and simplistic, but there you go. [dag, Apr 08 2002]

Reversing is covered in any driving test. In the HGV driving test, it's covered in great depth (as it was in the PSV test when I passed it). If you can't drive it backwards, you don't get to drive it at all.
There are some *extremely* long trucks, such as girder trucks (so called because the chassis of the trailer is actually made up of the item which it's carrying), which have steering rear wheels, and sometimes another 'driver', the 'trailer boy', operating them. So, I'm afraid, either unnecessary or baked, depending on how you look at it.
-- angel, Apr 08 2002


Thanks angel it will mark for deletion (or just delete it myself in a while) I had the idea for a car really, with a rotating seat, so you can see through the back windows to reverse, but I didn't know how you would put a steering wheel in the back passenger seat. ... hence the wagon thing.
-- gizmo, Apr 08 2002


There's a car lot that used to have a car my brother and I called a 'Pushmi-Pullyu'...It was the front end of two old cars that I didn't recognize, but looked vaguely British, welded together in the middle. Two engines, two sets of steering gear, two 'front' seats back to back.
-- StarChaser, Apr 08 2002


I've seen pictures of this done well with a Volkswagen bus. Don't know if it actually worked but by looking inside you couldn't tell which end was which.
-- justfred, Apr 09 2002


Seeing as the VW normally has the engine in the back, I don't suppose it would matter, as it won't be going anywhere.
-- angel, Apr 09 2002


Some time ago a truck delivered a load of building bricks to my Dad's house. It dumped the trailer, then the tractor unit had a fork-lift arrangement on the rear with a reversible driver's seat, so the guy could use it as a fork-lift truck to unload the trailer. Not a separate fork-lift - the whole big truck cab became the fork-lift. Most impressive.
-- drew, May 12 2002



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