While not a "Camping" incident, it certainly is a CAMPER incident. While bring home our new camper (Coachmen Catalina 343QBDS), I became VERY aware of the Tail swing of the back of the camper.
Getting in to our property we have to make a tight turn into an alley way. (See Picture below.)
The Yellow represents me driving FORWARD, the Orange, I am "Backing" and the Red are obstacles.
So I have to turn up a street (North St) and make the right turn down the alley way. The alley way is about a car and a half wide (maybe.) at the entrance I have to deal with an IRON I beam in the ground as a post (to protect the carport on the corner.) and a dilapidated stacked timber wall by a house. And it's "Up Hill" (Going up North St).
So in order to make the turn, I have to go W I D E! There is a car (Red and Green) on the side of the road where I need to make the turn but it's far enough back that I thought it wasn't going to be an issue. So as my DW is checking the FRONT of the vehicle and I go to make the "WIDE" Turn, apparently I was not clear of the car and the TAIL of the camper hits the parked car. (UGH) That's when the Kid (Purple) finally yells that I hit. (Why didn't you say something before?).
So the damage to the camper with less than 30 miles on it (at least from us) was the Stabilizer (which after all said and done, i was able to fix with about $10 of parts from Lowes) and some crumpling of the siding which will probably cost $300 - $500 based on estimates.
The car however.... had a slightly crumpled back door where the raised stabilizer dug right into it (where you put the crank). Now the problem was getting the camper off the car with minimal more damage. I was going to have to "Disconnect" the camper.... Did I mention it was on a hill?
Anyway, with help from a neighbor, some tools, lots of blocks, I ended up REMOVING the stabilizer from the camper so it was no longer an issue with the car... Getting the camper off the car with minimal more damage and then found a place to park the camper in the meantime. The owners of the car were not at home when all this occurred, but came back after we had left and while I was still unhooking the camper at another location (There is an armory on the other side of the house where I could temporarily park it). So they were checking it out and wondering when I came over and explained my embarrassing situation.
Fortunately they were good spirited about it. Cost me $900 to fix their car. Cost a lot more in my Pride!
They have agreed, with enough notice, to move their car when we would need to get in/out with our camper until we can work another solution (such as having a "FRONT" entrance to the main roadway).