Article - Backing Up A Short Trailer
You can backup your trailer – as long as the trailer is long enough.
To understand why backing up a short trailer is more difficult, all you need is a bit of geometry..
I vaguely remember geometry...
If your truck and trailer are perfectly aligned, and you back up just a little bit, the trailer will also move straight backward by that same little bit:
But if the trailer is turned 90 degrees—perpendicular to the truck—and you back up the same little bit, the trailer doesn’t move backward. Instead, it simply pivots around the center of its axle:
So, what’s the problem with a short trailer?
The amount a trailer rotates while backing up directly affects how stable it is in reverse.
To figure out how much rotation occurs when backing up a short distance, imagine backing up far enough to spin the trailer all the way around in a full circle. The total distance the hitch ball travels along that circle represents 360 degrees of rotation:
When you back up only a short distance, you’re covering just a small part of the full circle. That fraction of the circle corresponds to the same fraction of 360 degrees, which tells you how much the trailer will rotate.
Example:
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With a 16-foot trailer, the full circular path is about 100 feet. Backing up 1 foot equals about 1% of a full circle—about 3.6° of rotation.
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With an 8-foot trailer, the full path is only 50 feet. Backing up that same 1 foot now covers 2% of the smaller circle—resulting in about 7.2° of rotation.
This shows that a trailer half the length turns twice as fast. That’s why backing up a 20-foot boat trailer is much easier than reversing a 5-foot log splitter.
Visibility is also key
Knowing where your trailer is when backing up is critical. Specifically, which side of your truck it's on and how far off to that side it's turned.
When a trailer crosses from one side of your truck to the other while reversing, you need to adjust your steering. The faster you make that adjustment, the straighter your trailer will go.
The challenge is that short trailers are often small trailers. As trailer length decreases, so do other dimensions—like height and width.
Smaller trailers are harder to see. They might sit below your truck’s tailgate, making them nearly invisible in your rearview mirror. Because they're narrower and shorter, they may not show up in your side mirrors until they’ve already veered significantly off course.
What Can You Do?
1. Use a Trailer Tongue Extender
A tongue extender increases the distance between the hitch and the axle, effectively making the trailer behave like a longer one. This makes backing up more manageable. (They're also useful when launching a boat without submerging your truck’s back wheels.)
But be careful—longer tongues experience more force, which can affect mechanical strength. A longer tongue also reduces tongue weight, so you may need to redistribute weight forward to maintain stability.
2. Use a Hitch Angle Gauge
A hitch angle gauge shows how far your trailer is angled relative to the straight-back position. The TowGo® Trailer Backup Navigation Aid includes a built-in hitch angle gauge and other features to help you steer more precisely, whether you're backing in a straight line or along a curve.
This tool makes it possible to backup even a log splitter or other short trailer with much greater ease. The Trailer Backup Navigation Aid can help you backup a log splitter or other short trailer.
Dan Shepard is the Founder and CEO of TowGo, LLC, manufacturer of the Trailer Backup Navigation Aid, and is an expert on trailer backup technology.