Talk:J-turn

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A J-Turn is a driving manoeuvre which is basically a 'backwards' U-Turn. This is also known as a moonshiner's turn. It is defined as turning a car through 180 degrees from reversing in a straight line to driving forwards in a straight line.

The narrowest J-turn was performed in a Ford Escort Estate, in a space measuring 172 cm (67.7 in), by Russ Swift of Darlington, County Durham, England, at the Zenithhalle, Munich, Germany, on April 9, 1999.

The Wiki search page on a Ford Escort Estate redirects to the page on the Ford Squire, which apparently has a length of 360.68cm. As talented as he is, I find it difficult to believe Mr. Russ Swift could perform a J-turn in a space no wider than half the length of his car. Although it's commonly reported on many sites that is what happened, I have found several sites - including an article on Terry Grant's record setting performance - which state that the space in which Mr. Swift performed his J-turn was actually "172cm longer than the length of his car". Kwazimoto69 (talk) 20:40, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Confusing description

The "backwards U-turn" description seems confusing. In a U-turn, the vehicle's direction is changed, but this manoeuvre seems to describe changing the vehicle's orientation, but not the direction of its travel. -Tobogganoggin ^talk 04:18, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Gotta agree with you there. I've changed the description.--Father Goose 05:11, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

"Spam" link

(Turned javascript on) Okay, it's got four Google ads at the bottom. That still doesn't make it spam. It's still got content the other links don't offer (a text, not video, explanation of how to perform a J-turn). This is content we shouldn't add to the Wikipedia article, per WP:HOWTO (this edit convinced me that this is a particularly bad idea in this case). But I feel we should link to at least one "how to perform a j-turn" external article, and this is the only one we have so far. Do you have a replacement?--Father Goose (talk) 18:37, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Which turn?

In watching Canada's Worst Driver, The maneouver described as a Bootleg turn on wikipedia was called a J-turn (ie: they taught a J-turn as a 180-degree change of direction, (described in episode 5 here, http://www.discoverychannel.ca/episodeList.aspx?sid=12914 ) whilst last year, the Reverse-to-forward maneouver that is described here as a J-turn was called a Reverse Flick. TheHYPO (talk) 21:30, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

This seems wrong

The foot pedal brake slows down all wheels, while the emergency brake normally slows down the rear wheels. So if driving backwards, it would make sense to pull the emergency brake... --someone 27.09.2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.160.62.84 (talk) 13:20, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

No Braking Is Necessary I've never performed this type of turn myself; however I have been in a car while the driver did perform this turn, which I have always referred to as a reverse float. There is no braking necessary. The turn is possible because the rear wheels are spinning so fast as to have little contact, due to a loss of traction, with the pavement. The rear wheels are "floating". Application of the brakes would slow all four wheels reducing the momentum necessary to perform the maneuver; however application of the brakes may shift the car's weight onto the rear axle, and thereby off the front axle, allowing the front of the car to be active and more likely to change direction, which is the whole point of this maneuver. Using the parking brake may accomplish a similar effect without slowing the front of the car. Whenever the leading end of a vehicle (the rear of the car in this case) starts moving more slowly than the trailing end (the front of the car), the ends tend to want to trade places, which is beneficial for a reverse float. Given enough momentum, application of the brakes is not necessary. The very action of changing the direction of the front of the car while moving in reverse (by turning the steering wheel) will cause the front of the car to come around. No motor head I have ever talked to would refer to this maneuver as anything other than a reverse float.

Michigan Left

J Turn is also another name for a "Michigan Left"

According to that well-known reliable source Wikipedia, a Michigan left is completely different and nothing like a J-turn. Chaheel Riens (talk) 13:29, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

I think a better phrasing would be "is completely different and nothing like this J-Turn". Egmason (talk) 07:25, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Added Diagram

Added an animation. There was one on commons already, but that one was wrong. Egmason (talk) 07:25, 2 February 2018 (UTC)