For the record, I have not killed children at Wal-mart.
I can see people feel pretty strongly about this, but I still don’t get it. I can back into the space pretty adroitly, but I’m just saving myself the same amount of time it would take to back out. That part is a wash. But then you have to add in the fact — and it is a fact, right? – that whether you’re a good driver or a crappy driver, it takes a bit more effort and concentration to back into a confined space than it does to back into a wide open space with relatively little limits on your movement.
So the options seem to be: A-- Pull forward into a relatively small space, which most people can do quickly and easily, then back out into a wide open space, which most people can do quickly and easily. Or B - Stop, go into reverse, back into relatively small space, then pull out into a wide open space. I don’t see why I would choose B.
As for the safety concerns, if you can’t back out of a parking space without causing widespread carnage, don’t go shopping. Pulling out of the space nose first doesn’t guarantee you can just roar away without looking for kids and adult idiots.
But thanks to all for explaining the reasoning behind this.
One never knows when he/she may need to get the hell out of the area in a hurry.
It’s a lot easier to do that when you only need to pull straight out and take off.
Example in point: Several years ago I walked into a bar. It was in a rural area and I had no cell phone signal. I was alone and did not have a gun on me, which is unusual for me. I only went to the place because I wanted to talk to someone I believed would be there who I couldn’t get a hold of otherwise. Instead when I stepped inside I found myself almost face to face with someone else: a guy I had put in prison for 7 years. Neither he nor his large group of dirtball friends were happy to see me.
Normally I don’t shy away from conflict, but there was no freaking way that situation was going to turn out good for me. I stepped back out, jumped on my bike, and rode straight out ahead and out of the area. If I had to back my bike out of the parking space they would have caught up to me in the lot!
Fair enough. But if you also look at the motion of the car, it’s pretty obvious. If the car moves as far right in the aisle as possible, it’s either backing into a space on the right, or moving forward into a space on the left. Look at the turn signal to distinguish between the two possibilities.
Yup, this is the right answer. Since the turning wheels are in the front, you can back into a space far more cleanly than you can turn in. Especially if the space isnt angled.
This is easy only if the aisle/lane in front of the parking space is very wide (at least a car length), and the parking space itself is fairly wide. Of course this is the norm in American suburbs, which is why most Americans never learn to park backwards.
But in a more confined space, backing into a space becomes easier. And with a sufficiently narrow space, it’s physically impossible to move forward into the parking space, but still very possible to park backwards. (I speak from experience, having driven a Volvo in Tokyo many times.)
All right, you’ve convinced me that if I’m parking a forklift with a long wheel base in an insanely small space in Tokyo, with suicidal adults and blind toddlers milling around the parking lot, I should go backwards.
When I’m parking in a normal space in normal conditions at a normal grocery store, it still makes more sense to me to just pull in.
It really depends on the layout. I have seen parking spots in confined areas where you’d have to do a 180 (or drive in reverse through the entrance of the lot) to have the clearance to back into them.
I pull through if it’s an option, but back in otherwise.
I still maintain that backing in us easier. Much tighter turning circle. Then again, my limited experience of parking spaces in the US is that it would be trivial to park a battleship in them. Over here, you frequently can’t open the doors, they’re so tight.
Backing in isn’t really about ease of maneuverability, it’s about my own ability to safely pull out of the space. I have nearly 180 degrees of peripheral vision to see traffic coming from both directions when I pull out forward. Backing out of a space I have a greatly limited field of vision looking over my shoulder. Traffic has the right of way, I either need no traffic behind me or someone who is obviously yielding to me in order to safely go. I can’t see that as easily over my shoulder as I can when I’m pulling out forward.
In Japan, everybody backs in, all the time, no matter what, and they can typically complete the entire process faster than I can shift into reverse. It’s been joked that a car parked nose-in in Japan is always owned by an American.
I’m not sure what the rule is at this base, but at my previous base, the rule was never to park government vehicles back-in. Presumably this is to avoid accidents from people bumping into other parked cars, although it is also worth mentioning that we are required to use a spotter whenever backing up a government-owned vehicle, so you’d think that’d making backing in even easier for us.
I usually don’t back in unless I think of it and have some time to kill before getting out of the car. When I back out, I do so very slowly and try to take advantage of the tendency for most modern automobiles to have transparent windows, allowing me to see through other parked cars. Granted, this only works when I’m parked next to a vehicle that’s not significantly taller than mine.
I haven’t had a lot of experience with the sort of people who insist on continuing past within inches of a reversing vehicle, but I’m sure they’re out there along with the folks who become enraged at people who signal them by flashing their high beams and people who drive on highways at the posted speed limit.
Unless someone is riding my bumper in a parking lot, I always back in. I was visiting my mother yesterday and there was another car parked friend infront of her parking spot parallel against the curb next to two other cars and the only way to park was to back in.
My sister noted she could never do that. Pays to practice.
