Do you back into normal parking spaces? Why?

Well, the City of Gainesville, Florida would beg to disagree because I got a parking ticket there once for backing into a spot.

It’s not easier, point blank. Backing out poses at least as many problems as backing in.

You’re supposed to climb over the handbrake and gearstick to get out from the passenger’s side? That’s weird.

Two reasons I do it that I don’t think have been mentioned:

Once I’ve already been driving a while, I am more mentally alert and in maximum “aware driver mode.” Sometimes at the end of a long work day it takes a bit to get the brain alert again.

It’s also a bitch in the winter if you ever get a dead battery and need a jump start and you parked head-in. This happened to me when I used to drive clunkers. It was hard enough to recruit someone to give you a jump, but when you also needed someone to help push you out of the spot first it was so much worse.

In such cases, is the driver backing out blocking (or potentially blocking) the right-of-way of the car driving down the aisle? Who has the right of way, the car coming out of a parking spot or the car driving down the aisle (in a parking lot where the spaces are perpendicular to the aisles)?

In other words, who has the right of way, the car pulling out or the supposed “asshole?”

I usually back in:

  • for the practice of controlling my car in tight spaces
  • because it is safer pulling out instead of backing out
  • because when approaching the parking spot I can see if it is clear of hazards before backing in, but when backing out I can’t see as clearly if the aisle/road is clear

For some people I’m sure that’s true, but like I said, the people I see doing it in my parking garage suck at it, and they still do it. To back out of the spot they might have to reverse, forward, reverse, forward, but no more than that. To back in, they’re doing it way more times than that.

Some of these people do a lot of weird things in the parking garage though, so maybe it’s silly to try to make sense of their garage habits. Some nut keeps just hanging out with his car on in the aisle, COMPLETELY blocking my spot and several others, and then I pull up behind him and he just sits there. After several moments of “WTF? Is this guy seriously not going to move??” I honk, and he pulls forward a few feet, unblocking ZERO of the spots that he had been blocking. I wait for him to do something that makes sense, give up, and then honk again and he finally pulls up just barely enough. This has happened a couple times. And that’s just one example. Weirdass people, I swear.

Backing in does take a lot more skill than backing out. That’s very true. And when you consider the fact that many people can’t even parallel park, that’s probably a valid point.

So once again the moral of story is, one needs to know one’s limitations. If you suck at something, either don’t do it or try to get better at it before trying to it in public. It’s also an example of the fact that there are no universal rules. Some people can do a boot leg turn at speed and skid into a parking spot with no problem, but the odds are you aren’t one of them and neither am i. We just have to admit that and try to move on with our lives.

I agree with the “back in” crowd, but I have an additional reason that I don’t think has been mentioned yet. This is that doing your slowest manoeuvering at the end of a journey (when your engine is warmed up) will use less fuel than doing so at the beginning of the journey (when the engine is cold). It would interesting to see if this difference is significant (or even measurable!) but somebody did touch on this earlier in relation to how well an engine operates from a cold start.

Threads like this one always remind me of one of the starker differences between U.S.A. and Thailand: Driving (and Parking) Conditions.

A major shopping venue near me has a too-small parking lot; it’s often best to avoid the lot altogether unless you get there early on a weekday. If you do park in the lot, finding two spaces together so that you can “pull through” and make both entrance and exit nose-first is rarer than a four-leaf clover. Instead, all drivers who use the spaces back-in – nose-first entry would be geometrically impossible for all but tiny cars as I explained above. Most of those who arrive mid-day don’t park in a space – they’re all taken. They park perpendicular to and behind the regularly parked cars, usually leaving their handbrakes off. There are so many of these cars that exiting from a regular space often requires pushing several cars to create a way. Even then, since both sides of the parking lane will have these extra parked cars, exiting a regular space may be geometrically difficult even nose-first.

Many Thai drivers are poor parkers. I often get looks of incredulity if I parallel park with a single manoeuvre. Among several funny parking stories I’ll mention just one:

Wanting to exit a parking lot, my path was blocked by a woman attempting to park in a normal space. In-out-in-out-in-out-in-out-… while an attendant stood behind her car giving directions. Whenever she was “in” it would have been easy for me to drive past, but the attendant was in the way. I beeped horn lightly to suggest I pass but got only dirty looks in response. (She was driving a new Mercedes; I an old Nissan. I’m sure they’d have been pleased to let me pass in the vice-versa case.)

Your engine is more efficient at operating temperature, but backing in has no bearing on overall savings (and you actually want to be moving when it’s cold). Besides, you typically drive slow(er) at the beginning and end of any journey, regardless of which direction you’re moving, so even if it were the case, it would be negligible.

Why would it take longer to back IN to a parking spot than to back OUT of one? At some point, you have to back the car, whether it’s into the spot in the first place, or out into the parking “aisle” when you leave.

With that in mind, it actually is NOT “easier to go in forward and then back out when you leave”. It’s far easier to drive forward out of the space with full view of all moving objects. When you back in, you’re backing in between two unmoving objects (two other cars for instance in a normal parking spot). When you leave, you then have to back out into a narrow parking lot driving lane which contains, at any given point, moving vehicles, people walking with shopping cars, small children (who’ve escaped their parents’ hold) darting about.

The industry in which I work, most companies even have it as part of their policy that when driving the company vehicle, you back INTO parking spots in order to allow the best visibility (of others) when driving out of the parking spot.

I used to also do it in my parking garage in my condo. The reason being that pulling forward into the spot (8 spot indoor/low ceiling enclosed garage) was nearly impossible. It was SO much easier to pull all of the way to the back wall, then back into my spot. Then when leaving to pull forward out of the garage. Believe me, when I first moved in, I tried several times to figure out how to pull in my spot forward (it was the closest to the door on the south side, which meant my passenger side would be facing the front wall if I pulled in forward). If you’d lived in my building, you’d have been waiting FAR longer for me to try and park forward then my quick “up to the back wall, back smoothly into the space” maneuver. I never did manage to get parked when trying to pull in straight, anyone waiting to also get into the garage would have been there at least 10 minutes (that’s about how long it took me to attempt it before I gave up and figured out the up and back move).

I pull through almost exclusively.

Only time I don’t is like if it’s at Walgreens where there are no places with two rows touching each other. The I usually just pull in forward, but pick a spot far enough away that only an utter lunatic would park next to me in the brief time I’m in the store.

I have also at these smaller places, if the arrangement allows, pulled into one spot head forward, then backed up (safely) through the lane of parking lot traffic into the other spots so I can then pull out head first.

like pull in head first to x, then back into Y

STORE
|||X|
LANE
|||Y|
CURB/RIGHT OF WAY/SIDEWALK
ROAD

I only back in when I’m at work. It isn’t a hassle, because I’m maybe the 5th person on campus, so wheeling around the parking lot is easy. The main reason for backing in is because backing out in the afternoon can be fraught with peril, what with band, cross-country, and every other student activity seemingly determined to walk behind my car when I’m truing to leave. Facing out means I can see them easier and aim for the freshmen.

Because when you’re leaving the space, you have a much bigger area to back into.

Yeah, sometimes that’s the case, but sometimes (like in my parking garage) it’s not. I guess I get why people who find it easy do it, but not these people I’m talking about. And they can’t ALL just be practicing their driving.

This thread makes me realize that most of the lots I park in have diagonal spaces. This being the case, it would be insane to try to back into a spot unless you’re going the wrong way down the aisle (pulling through also means the person will be heading out the wrong way). At work, I find it easier to pull in head-first because there’s a lot of vehicle and foot traffic in the morning, but the lot is deserted by the time I head for home.

Most of the driving I do in a weekly time period is my assigned work vehicle - a 1999 GMC Suburban with the back so filled with equipment I only have side mirrors to work with.

When it comes time to park I am fully aware of the situation around me. And as others have remarked in most situations backing into the space is a two point turn: pass space, swing wide away from it, go into reverse and gently glide into the spot.

Then when it is time to leave I have full sight lines which allows an easier exit.

If this is not possible or reasonable when I park, then exiting is slow and tough as I am really blind to a lot behind me.

In both situations I am likely to park further away than most vehicles, hopefully in a clear area, and walk the extra 20 yards.