Honestly it’s the same as the antivax shit. There is clear evidence that back-in parking is safer, just like there is clear evidence that vaccines are safe and effective, and the other side is, objectively, wrong about an issue that leads to people dying.
It really easy to park nose in. In every lot I’ve been in if the lines are angled.
Please please look at the arrows on the row you’re turning into. Going the wrong way, which happens way too often, inconveniences me. So I inconvenience right back by stopping right in front of them and not budging. Now they get to practice their reverse driving sometimes a long long way. Shouldn’t cuss so much it will distract you. 
Because I’m right, they’re wrong! So sayeth beck.
(You know full well I’ve never done this, but I’ve thought about it so many times)
This is a great example of “how to lie with statistics”, except worse, because that’s not even what the article is about. The article blames parking lot accidents on distracted driving, which appears to be common when entering or just leaving a parking space or maneuvering in a crowded parking lot.
This is the “how to lie with statistics” part. No one disputes that, everything else being equal, driving forward out of a parking spot is going to be safer than backing out. That’s why, if possible, I’ll pull forward into an empty space in front of me so I end up facing out. But that statistic overlooks two important questions: how much safer is the back-in strategy, and is it worth all the other attendant risks and inconveniences?
As I said before, I’ve been driving and parking for well over 50 years. I’ve never run over anyone, never even came close to an accident in a parking lot (I’ve had a couple of close calls on the road due to inattentive or impatient asshole drivers). This is a long enough time that it has to be considered as a valid data point rather than just half a century of dumb luck.
Me too. I’ve driven many years. Parked in lots with teenagers zooming about leaving ballgames or school events.
Parked where every grandma in town is at, at medical facilities.
Many big box store lots where people are often insane on a good day.
With 4 kids in my car in all stages of trouble making.
No near misses. No slam on the brake situations. Just eased my way out and did fine.
Never have I even ran over a bird or a frog.
If you’re zipping in and out of parking spots which ever way you are pointed, you ARE the problem.
People used to do “I drive home after eight beers every Friday night and I’ve never hit anyone,” too. “I never wear my seatbelt and I’m fine.” “I’ve never had a vaccination and I don’t have measles.” “What about all the five-year-olds we DIDN’T deport?” Etc. The point of statistics is your (unverifiable) anecdotes don’t mean anything other than disproving a claim nobody made about “every single person without exception who drives suboptimally has killed someone.” Everything in reality is likelihoods, probabilities, and sums, and those likelihoods, probabilities, and sums say front-in parking is for dangerous shitheads.
If true, that means that virtually every vehicle I see in parking lots everywhere is driven by “a dangerous shithead”, because it’s parked front-in. Yet somehow we manage.
Among the many confounding factors in a study like the one you cited is the existence of careless and incompetent drivers. Careless and incompetent drivers are probably more likely to park front-in because it’s easier. That may establish a correlation with backing-out accidents, but it does not mean that everyone parking front-in is incompetent, let alone “a dangerous shithead”.
Once again, my observation is that almost everyone parks front-in, and most of us have lived to tell the tale. Driving tests in most jurisdictions require the demonstrated ability to parallel park, but none, to my knowledge, have ever required, recommended, or tested the ability to back into parking spots.
I addressed your complaints in the previous post, but I just want to add another couple of comments in response to this. Do the people who say “I drive drunk all the time and have never hit anyone?” also claim they’ve been doing this consistently for more than 50 years? If so, they must have been born with a lucky horseshoe up their ass, and few of us are.
Duly noted that you’re calling me a liar.
I’ll also throw in another factoid that you can claim to be a lie. In my later years, having outgrown the follies of youth, I will not drive if I’ve had even one drink. It’s just not worth it. Even if it’s still legal, the attendant risk to reduced awareness is there. The point being, I think I’m able to make reasonably intelligent risk-benefit assessments without the aid of amateur busybodies throwing in unvetted statistics that may be meaningless about the best way to park.
Busy weekend on my minor Pit thread!
I promise I searched, and the most recent Pit thread on this subject I could find was like a decade old, so I figured it was ok to broach it again.
To be clear, if you’re a competent driver who can back-in park without the car-robot’s help (or even with it) in a reasonable amount of time I DO NOT PIT YOU HERE. Go with Gerd, in whatever direction most pleases you. If there are specific circumstances of geography, physiology, weather, or spirituality that make back-in parking the correct choice wherever you happen to be stopping I DO NOT PIT YOU HERE.
But if you’re ‘that guy’ who never manage the feat prior to, post 2015, obtaining a vehicle with a back-up assist camera that STILL takes multiple minutes and several attempts to navigate your Nissima Cosmic Space Destroyer into the slot between the Escalate and the Armadanator while all around you civilization grinds to a halt as 8,000,000,000 people await the outcome FUCK YOU AND DIEEEEE!!!
Everyone have a nice weekend?
Shouldn’t that be Dies, Irae?
I’ll see myself out.
Someone will escort you to the door!
First, I think a lot of posters are ignoring that parking lots and related conditions vary from place to place. In big roomy parking lots where everyone routinely moves slowly, it doesn’t matter a lot which way you park. Some lots are angled, and one direction (the one aligned with the angles) is clearly preferred.
But there absolutely are lots of parking accidents. Backup cameras are now required on cars sold in the US because of the number of kids who were killed, mostly by people backing out of parking spaces.
Back when we didn’t take drunk driving seriously, lots of people absolutely did have a lifetime record of driving drunk without causing any accidents. Some still do. People vary a lot, too. And it’s the nature of human beings that we aren’t always perfectly attentive. That’s why it’s good to practice good habits. So when you are distracted by that cancer diagnosis you backed into the space and can safely head out without a lot of cognitive strain.
To those of you unhappy to wait for a driver slowly backing into a parking space, chill the fuck out. Maybe that driver for whatever reason unbeknownst to you, has trouble safely backing out of parking spaces. In fact, the very observation that they have trouble backing into a parking space suggests they might not be as good at backing out as you are. Maybe their mobility (to crane their neck) or their spacial reasoning (to interpret what they see in the mirrors) isn’t super. They know that the worst that will happen backing in is a minor fender bender, and they could cause serious damage backing out.
Oh noes, you have to wait half a minute to accommodate someone else. The horror.
“If there are specific circumstances of geography, physiology, weather, or spirituality that make back-in parking the correct choice wherever you happen to be stopping I DO NOT PIT YOU HERE.”
Another vital data point: this morning I was driving down a row in a medical clinic parking lot, and the driver in front of me backed into a parking slot, taking several seconds and achieving it on the first try, during a snow shower.
I let the foul fiend have a piece of my mind.
I was reacting more to wolfpup and some if the other commentators than to you, fwiw.
To be clear, if you’re a competent driver who can back-in park without the car-robot’s help (or even with it) in a reasonable amount of time I DO NOT PIT YOU HERE.
I drive a pickup truck that is very difficult (for me) to nose-in when space is tight. Backing in is necessary because by having the controlling wheels at the opposite end of the target, it is very easy to swing the vehicle so it fits. Having the controlling wheels facing the space makes the arc too wide.
I really do my best to not hold people up.
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When I go to Starbucks in the morning, there are usually two or three cars following me as I approach my favorite parking spot, so I simply slide my truck over to the side in the unused parking spaces and wave them past. Then I very quickly and efficiently make my move.
A couple of weeks back a woman didn’t want to go past me, so I waved a little more vigorously and she finally went…I was sideways in a section of totally empty parking spaces on the right, as I waved her past. As I started my maneuver, to back into one of those same spots, I looked on in horror as she did the same just forward of where I had been, she was about to back into me. I honked. She didn’t stop moving…6 inches to go…I honked again. She stopped and disaster was narrowly averted.
First thing I did when we saw each other in the parking lot was wave and say “Sorry about that! I didn’t mean to confuse things.”
And she proceeded to use unpleasant language with me.
Gosh darn it, when you are in a traffic altercation where nothing happens, a sincere and instant apology should always diffuse the situation. Heck, even on those motorcycle drama videos the guys usually say “But he waved at me so all was good.” Simply acknowledging a mistake should diffuse everything.
…but not with her. She just wanted to be angry and curse. Oh well. I even said to her as she ranted: “No need to be upset. The first thing out of my mouth was ‘I’m sorry!’” Hopefully at a calmer time she remembered that. She was in the wrong anyway, but it wasn’t worth it to press the issue.
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I don’t back into parking spaces, BUT …
When I pull into a space and, if the space for the car that should be facing me is empty, I continue to pull through so that I am occupying that space with the nose of my car facing outward.
This is not true in my experience. Do you live in a city? The parking lot I go to where I see lots of back-in parkers, they’re faster than the pull-forward parkers. (And, like I said before, I’m a pull-foward guy cuz I suck at backing in.)
I live in the city and work in the suburbs. Back-in parkers are a minority, but a sizable one. They never manage to just park on their first attempt.
At this parking lot, they’re a majority. It’s really not efficient to park head-in most of the time because the spaces are just so tight and there’s little room to turn. I often will give up on a spot and park on the street, but if I were better at backing in, I’d be able to make it more easily and confidently. There’s just a better turn radius and better visibility in your mirrors. I’m not sure I ever see anyone completely retry. They’ll pull forward to adjust, but usually it’s pull back, pull forward a little to straighten the angle, pull all the way back. Going forward, I sometimes have to pull in and out three or four times to make sure to leave enough room on each side, because sometimes you can barely open the car door and fit your body through to get out. (Part of me wants to take a tape measure out there to see if the spacing is even legal – it feels ridiculously tight.)