I’ve noticed in parking lots that it’s a common thing to see a few cars that are parked in the opposite direction as everybody else. I just assumed that they had pulled straight into a spot, noticed that there wasn’t a car in the adjacent space, so they pulled through to get a little closer to the building.
But then I noticed that there are often cars parked in the opposite direction even along the borders of the lot, where it’s impossible to pull through. They must be backing into the space. But why?
Either way you park, you’ll have to put the car into reverse at some point. The difference is that since it’s easier to drive forward than in reverse, you should pull forward into the more restricted place (think: the parking space) but back out of the more open space (think: the isle). Plus, when you back into a space it takes longer and you hold everybody up behind you. So why do these people do it? Are they planning on making a quick getaway?? Have their registration tags expired???
It might be easier to exit the parking space in the forward gear if you have a full-size pickup or a trailer, but it seems that most of the people who are doing this drive average-sized cars. Why do they do this?
Same reason everyone on my street parks on the curb, even though they have perfectly servicable and empty driveways, and even though it makes the street barely one-lane wide and makes it difficult to see kids running into the street…
…they’re Batman, and sometimes need to get out quickly.
As i understand it, you should back into the space in order to avoid backing out into the flow of traffic - the same way you shouldn’t back out from a minor/side road into a major road/highway. Don’t reverse from a minor into a major is how my old driving instructor put it.
Still I’m over here and things might be different in the States, but it makes sense to me, although it’s trickier to do.
surreal,
i’m in the oilfield and on land jobs everyone on the rig site is required to back in (it makes for a quicker, more orderly escape), and it just became a habit of mine.
With the round convex mirrors I have mounted on my outside rearviews, it’s a cinch seeing the stall lines when I’m backing up…I’m assured of being in the middle of the space. If I drive forward, I lose sight of the markings unless I crack open the door, and even then, it’s hard to judge how much space I have on the passenger side.
As stated by Sir Doris, I don’t like backing out into the flow of traffic, especially in light of the number of big-assed SUV’s I have to look around from my little Nissan. Especially at sporting events when 16,000 people are trying to exit the parking lot all at once.
It is safer to back into a parking space, than to back out of one. While backing in, you have a better view of traffic in the lane, and the vehicles behind you aren’t moving.
For ordinary situations, it’s stupidy and nothing more.
People delude themselves all the time with lame excuses, but pulling in is far safer. I esp. like the “backing out into traffic is risky” logic. Umm, in order to back in you will be going in reverse in the roadway so the logic is …?
Note that backing into a tight spot is far, far riskier than pulling in. Backing out of a tight spot is fairly trivial. It’s a win-win situation.
I’m always throwing things like logic at people about things like this and it is astonishing how many people hate well reasoned logical arguments.
ftg - you obviously haven’t backed out of a parking space only to almost get creamed by a vehicle you couldn’t see because of the minvans and SUVs surrounding you. Or do you hate my well-reasoned, logical, argument. :wally
Well, if it’s a parking spot, and you’re backing into it … you’re not going in reverse of anything, unless the cars on either side of your parking spot are moving (or you’re in an extremely busy parking lot). Now, if you’re talking about stopping on a road and then backing up into a space, sure - you’d be going in the opposite direction of other cars. This is called parallel parking. You put on your blinker, wait until traffic clears, and then back into the spot.
Like hell it is. It’s a lot safer to pull out of a spot than to back into it, since most people drive their cars facing the front of the car. When you’re backing into a spot, you’re moving your car to an area where no cars are moving; when you’re backing OUT of a space, you’re moving your car to an area where cars are moving.
Also, backing out of a tight spot is simply tougher to do than pulling out of a tight spot - as said earlier, one has better sight lines when one is looking to the front and sides of a car, rather than the rear.
I, like unclviny, work in the oil biz (pipelines in my case) and our company parking policy requires us to back into or pull through so that you can pull straight out and not back out. All of our industry safety studies show that backing out is much more likely to cause an accident. In essence, when you back out, you are less likely to see an oncoming vehicle until you’re vehicle is much further out into traffic than if you pull straight out. In our parking lot at work, you can always pick out the visitors cars as they are the only cars parked head in.
My seasonal job for the last 2 years has been on a Forest Service fire engine crew. When we take the engine anywhere, we back into the spot, so if we’re dispatched we can get out in a hurry. The same goes for when we’re on fires. Now, even though I’m done for the season, I’m still in the habit of backing into parking spots.
Pac Bell did a study a few years back to see what they could do to cut down the number of accidents their drivers got into, and found that if they told them to back up as little as possible, or to back up at the end of the drive rather than the beginning, that would cut out a noticeable percentage of accidents.
If you back into a parking space, you’re doing your backing up when your vehicle is running and warmed-up, you know what the road conditions and traction are like. In places which get snow and ice on the ground, if you’re backing into traffic with a vehicle that just started, you may have lousy traction, brakes that are too cold to work right, ditto the steering; your windows and mirrors may be fogged up, too.
That said, I did get a ticket once at CSU Hayward for parking the wrong way in a diagonal spot, with the supposed reason being that I had to have driven the wrong way through the parking lot to get there.
If the parking lot you’re in is very slow now but you anticipate it will be hellaciously busy when you want to leave (most “Events” where arrivals are spread out but departures take place all at once) then backing in while it’s slow makes sense. You take a small risk by backing in while it’s slow but will have a better chance of leaving in a reasonable amount of time with better control of the vehicle when it’s busy.
At a mall where traffic is more difficult to predict, backing in doesn’t make much sense unless you’re driving something much larger or much smaller than everything else. If arrival and departure traffic are the same, the risk in backing in may outweigh the benefit of greater departure control, all else equal.
One key factor is to back into the space when there is little or no traffic coming down the lane in either direction. Some motorists have little familiarity with this move and misinterpret it. In busy parking lots I would imagine at least a few collisions could be attributed to those backing into parking spaces.
The most extreme example of this phenomenon is the person whose driveway ends in a busy highway. He needs a turnaround so that he can nose in and nose out.
It is much easier to maneuver vehicles in tight spots with greater precision if the fixed wheels are in the front and the turning wheels are in the rear. You position the fixed wheels where you want them to be, then swing the turning wheels around to get things aligned. Forklifts are designed this way for that very reason. Most automobiles aren’t unless you are backing up.
Have you ever tried to parallel park into a tight spot by pulling into it while moving forward? It is practically impossible to do it properly by pulling in front-end first. That’s why you pull past the spot, then back into it - you have much more maneuverability that way.
The same thing holds true when you pull into a parking space that is perpendicular to the lane of travel. You have to swing a large arc with the front-end to get into the space if you pull in frontwards. If your vehicle has a wheel-base longer than the typical sub-compact car, there isn’t enough room between the parked cars on either side of the space you are aiming for to complete the arc. So you pull part-way in, then back up to get better aligned and then pull into the space. When pulling out, you don’t have the room you need to swing the front-end around until you have cleared the rear bumpers of the cars on either side of you. By then, the back of your vehicle is about to run into the cars on the other side of the lane. So, again, you end up jockeying back and forth to get out of the parking space.
By backing in, you use the lane itself to maneuver the front-end of your vehicle and you have sufficient room to do so without endangering the other vehicles parked nearby. And pulling out can be accomplished by simply pulling forward and turning to where you want to go. Again the front wheel arc is in the traffic lane, not between parked cars and works whole lots better (and much safer as previously noted).
I back in because the tranny’s starting to go on my car, and if it sits for more than an hour, it won’t go into reverse, and even though my car’s small and light, it’s still a pain to push it.
because even though I know where the end of my car is, other people can’t judge theirs. I drive a corvette. It only took one person parking on top of my car to start parking nose out.
The local paper did an article about this some time back, and said the local police were neutral about suggesting people back into spaces. With skilled drivers they thought it was safer, but they also noted that many less-skilled drivers couldn’t back into a space without wandering all over the parking lot while trying to get lined up. (I always back in if possible, since I have a small car that can be hidden by SUVs, so I can carefully pull out if facing forward).
I back my motorcycle into the space because it’s easier to get geared up and ride straight out than to huff the bike backwards out into the middle of the parking area (or street) to get going.
When I’m driving the cage, I just pull in front first.
