I do lots of truck-esque stuff with my pickup. But most folks aren’t there when I do. Just a WAG, but I’d bet the urban crowd would prefer I didn’t bring all this to a downtown parking lot.
As to backing in, a quick look at pickup trucks should show there’s a lot more truck behind the rear wheels than ahead of the front ones. If whenever possible (like me) you park your truck on the lot’s edge, backing in till the rear wheels touch the curb allows the truck to be further “in” the space and not hang out into the lane (or at least not as much). Secondly, in a tight spot with cars on either side it is nearly impossible to turn forward into the space and have the rear wheels track and center in the spot (they’ll hang over the line). Backing in solves this problem as well, since you can position the rear wheels to be centered and swing the front as necessary to follow. I don’t have a diagram, but trust me it’s the only way sometimes.
A couple of years ago I was walking through a temporary parking lot in a grass field. I had my dog on a leash, and was walking close to the parked vehicles, as there was quite a bit of traffic in and out, and a kinda confusing setup. So my attention was directed other than at the bumpers of the vehicles I was passing.
I was just walking at a normal pace, when I smacked into a trailer hitch. Amazing how much damage you can do with the force of just bringing your leg forward. Lower leg swelled up so much, I eventually got an x-ray to see if I’d broken something, or if I had to worry about a blood clot or something.
Never really thought of trailer hitches before that, but now I HATE anyone who does not remove theirs when not towing something.
Obviously if left turners are entering the junction on a red light, that’s wrong.
But a large number of U.S. drivers seem to be unaware that if somebody has already entered the junction legally on a green light (usually waiting to turn left), they have right of way to complete their maneuver and exit the junction regardless of the status of the lights. And, similarly, that a green light does not mean “hit the gas”. It means that you have right of way to continue only if the junction is clear and it is safe to do so.
I wonder how often they back their hitch into someone’s vehicle or someone pulling up behind them hits the hitch. Some stick so far out, it boggles the mind! We hates them, we does!
Here’s my pickup truck rant: Just because you’re driving a 4WD pickup truck doesn’t mean you can fly down the road over the speed limit when the roads are snowy and icy. 4WD doesn’t make you invincible. I have nothing against 4WD pickups - we’ve had a few and we drive AWD cars now.
Other rants:
-When the person in front of you is going into a turn lane and instead of just getting in the lane, they drive with half of the car in the turning lane and half in my lane. Bonus points if they don’t use a signal.
-When sitting at a red arrow light in a left turn lane, why does it take the first two cars FOREVER to move forward? Those lights aren’t green for very long as it is.
-No use of turn signals
-As a pedestrian, I notice no one wants to stop at crosswalks. I’ve been nearly run over numerous times at a crosswalk that’s at a 4-way stop near my house. As soon as they see me about to cross, some of the cars will barely stop at the stop sign. They shoot across as fast as they can as if I’m going to delay them. There have been times when I’m halfway across the street and cars will shoot right in front of me!
“Nontraffic” means all cases where someone was run over a car when not on the road. That includes all parking lots , strip malls, driveways, etc. How much time do you spend driving forward in those places, vs. backwards?
Also here is a direct comparison of those numbers, which indicate forward moving cars are only 7% more likely to kill children (14 or under) than backward. Despite cars spending much more time driving forward than backward.
So far, I just have my informal survey. Looking at cars, those backing into traffic seemed more dangerous than those who backed out of it. I realize that’s effectively anecdote and not great statistics.
I appreciate finding published data on this but what you found does not convince me that driving straight into a parking spot is as safe as backing into it. Both of your citations rely on this report: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811085
You seem to suggest that because there are fewer backover deaths than frontover deaths in nontraffic crashes, it must mean that driving forward into a parking spot and backing out of it isn’t more dangerous than doing the opposite (and perhaps, that backing in is even more dangerous). I remain unconvinced.
Frontover deaths in that report include deadly collisions with “nonoccupants” (people not it a car) in parking lots and driveways when drivers aren’t reversing. Backovers are the same types of collisions but when the driver is reversing. The report’s data is incomplete and I don’t know how it might be skewed.
If I wanted to, I could assert that more “frontover” deaths means reversing is safer but that’s preposterous. Drivers spend way more time driving forward in parking lots and theoretically have many more occasions to strike pedestrians. For example, when I drive to Costco, I drive about 1/4 mile through the parking lot and cross about five or six pedestrian crosswalks. I could cause a frontover death at any of those crosswalks or anywhere else someone might be walking or riding a bike. When I get into a parking spot, I reverse about 60 feet. I will concede that reversing is more dangerous than driving forward for any distance covered.
The question becomes, how can I minimize the risk of reversing? I can (1) minimize the amount of reversing I do, and (2) reverse where it is safest to do so.
Reversing less: My informal survey showed that people who drive straight into parking spots don’t reverse less (unless they pull straight through them and pull straight out into the next spot). They reverse at least as much (judging by the number of times they change gears) and (excluding one outlier) generally seem to reverse much more. If driving in reverse is more dangerous, and I think it is, driving straight into the parking spot seems to increase that risk.
Where it is safest to reverse: I think it’s less dangerous to reverse into a parking spot rather than into traffic. Again, referring to my informal survey, people backing out of parking spots seemed to have more close calls with other cars than people driving straight out of them. Backing into a parking spot makes it almost impossible to cause a backover accident because there are rarely any pedestrians in the parking spot I want to park in. If there are, I can see them clearly and wait for them to leave the spot. It’s unlikely that pedestrians who aren’t in a parking spot when I start to back in will suddenly appear as I am doing it (though I suppose they could leap out of an adjacent car).
Many (most?) of those backover deaths in the NHTSA report happened in driveways when people run over toddlers. In straight driveways, reversing and driving forward equal out over time. How can we reduce backover deaths in those cases? The pamphlets you cited refers to two issues that may be relevant:
(1) Visibility is much worse in reverse. The average “blind zone” cited in the backover pamphlet is 15-20 feet. In the frontover pamphlet, they cite a blind zone of only 6-8 feet. So, the front blind zone is only 40% of the rear blind zone. If the risk of driveover parking spots deaths is linearly correlated with the size of the blind zone, reducing the blind zone risk by 60% could reduce the risk of death by 60%.
(2) In many cases the child was killed due to “bye bye syndrome,” that is the child follows a parent out the door unseen, winds up in the car’s blind spot, and is backed over.
Putting these concerns together suggests that it’s safer to back into a driveway and drive forward. This does nothing to reduce the chance that a toddler will follow a loved one out to the car but it may reduce the chance of them remaining unseen by perhaps 60% by, and consequently, reduce deaths.
You are exactly right that the geometry of cars or trucks favors backing in but I don’t have a diagram either. It’s why people driving forward into a parking spot wind up reversing much more often than people who back in.
I also don’t get why people judge pickup truck owners without knowing them. Many trucks do seem to be suburban kid-mobiles and I think that’s pretty stupid but to each his own I suppose. If we taxed the externalities of burning fossil fuels, this “problem” would go away. The one person I know with the truly huge pickup (Ford F350 diesel crew cab, short bed) uses it to tow his 32(?) foot boat and bring his friends with him. The truck stays shiny because he doesn’t use it for landscaping. Sometimes, just to keep it in good running shape and keep the batteries charged, he uses it to pick up groceries. His other car is a hybrid Honda.
I want to start carrying a ball peen hammer to deal with these assholes. This person just attacked me with a car, one of the deadliest implements in regular use. If that person comes close enough to me while I’m crossing that I can smash a window or dent a trunk, that person is lucky that I haven’t beaten them to death with the hammer in response.
One thing your casual observer test didn’t consider is the effects on the driving lane in the parking lot. If you are going to back in to the spot and I’m behind you, I have to stop and wait for you to pull forward, change gear to reverse, and then back into the spot (in however many attempts it takes you to aim your car right). I have to wait for you rather than driving on.
Generally, if you pull in forward, you can just pull in and I can drive by. I would think people are better at aiming going forward than in reverse - and faster too. Then, after I’m gone and the lane is clear, you can straighten up.
I think, in general, backing in will affect more other people than pulling in forward.
The “other drivers” that I find annoying? It’s pretty much all of them. I should be allowed to have lights and a siren so everyone in front of me would have to pull over and let me by.
You are basically right when they are parking, but you aren’t considering the other side of this - when people who drove straight in have to pull out of the spot, they will back out, slowly because they can’t see, and straight because they aren’t good at backing up. So, they will block both lanes of traffic. Then they will do a five point turn, continuing to block both lanes of traffic to rotate 90 degrees and move aside. Meanwhile, there may be a car who continues to block traffic because it is waiting for that spot to open up. I didn’t track this type of disruption my survey but it’s really where the drive straight in people are mucking up the traffic flow.
Sure, people backing into parking spaces are annoying. But you know what’s really annoying? People backing out of spaces. Why can’t they just pull out forwards, like normal people?
Around here, it means you will have a heavier vehicle, with more clearance under it than other types of vehicles when it snows. I do nothing remotely truckish but I was wishing for a truck when I bottomed out in my driveway a few weeks ago. :smack: The bed would be used for sandbags to weigh it down.
One of my traffic peeves (it’s a long list) is when I am backing out of a nose-in spot and someone rushes up to pass behind me. Bearing in mind there are few laws governing private parking lots:
I understand that if you’re driving down the parking lot row and I am all the way in the spot with my reverse lights showing, I should yield and wait for you to pass by before I begin to back out.
I also feel that even once I have started to back up, if you are near and moving at a reasonable pace, I should stop and let you pass behind me before I back any farther out of the space.
You (the generic you), the driver coming down the row, no doubt agree with me on these points, based on what I’ve seen you doing.
Where we differ is in how far I can be out of the space before you should recognize that I am a large metal object and hitting me will not improve your time in getting to the store. Some people seem to feel that if they can squeeze between my back bumper and the parked cars even when two thirds of my car is out of my space, I should pull back in and let them go flying down the row. NO. Once I am mostly in traffic, I am in traffic, and you must act as though I am just a car ahead of you in the row, not a tube worm that will retract back into my protective shelter at the first sign of movement.
Living in Southern California, where 1 in 5 drivers has no insurance, we get a lot of hit and run drivers. The trailer hitch on the back of my wife’s F-150 has protected her truck from damage from several people that have decided to run off after hitting her. Can’t say the same thing about the front of their cars though.
I will add that backing up a 20+ foot long truck into a parking space is much easier and faster than trying to pull in forward.
