[QUOTE=wisernow]
I too have always found it strange to see people backing into parking spots. Whilst I may agree that quite a few of those I have seen were pretty good at doing the maneuver, but still…it is quite certainly more difficult to back into an 8 foot wide spot with cars on either side than to drive front-end in and back out into the road.
[/QUOTE]
OK, I’ll comment.
Backing in works much better if you have a long wheel based vehicle in a tight (for that vehicle) lot. It is hard to explain in words, but backing in allows the vehicle to make a much sharper turn into the space, thus avoiding the several jockeying turns that would be needed to get into the space in the forward direction. Going forward, the front wheels turn inside the path of travel, in reverse, they go to the outside, and that makes all the difference. I’m talking extended cab, 8’ bed pickup trucks, and suburbans here. It is really painful to watch these behemoths in a parking lot when their drivers haven’t cottoned to the backing in thing.
Another point with long vehicles, is that there is that the rear bumper is normally much farther from the back wheels than the front bumper is from the front wheels. Often they can use this to advantage, by backing into a space and allowing the rear to overhang a sidewalk or landscaping, thus avoiding sticking out into the isle, or using more than one space.
Next: Motorcycles. Very few motorcycles have a reverse gear. If the parking space is sloped downward, the rider needs to back the bike in, so that he can drive out forward (uphill) under power. Every new rider gets this wrong once…the smarter ones don’t repeat the mistake.
All vehicles: When you back into a space, you first drive past it, and can check it out for stray carts, etc. You are then in the isle where everyone can see you backing in. When you back out of a space, you often have poor visibility of the isle you are backing into. And the drivers in the isle often can’t determine that you are about to move rearward. I have been backed into in lots 3 times and have been in the car twice with drivers that backed into another car. In all cases these accidents would not have occurred if the driver had backed into the space, and availed themselves of the improved visibility when pulling out. In all these cases, the car in the isle had stopped to allow yet another car to back into the isle, so their speed in the isle was not a factor, and In two of my cases, honking the horn was the only thing I could do to try to stop the backer. This is really critical in vehicles with poor rearward visibility…a pickup with a slide in camper for example. The cars to the side are easily seen in the mirrors while backing in, but traffic in the isle requires an assistant to spot if backing out. Seriously, all the parking lot accidents I have observed happend when a driver was leaving a space, and none when entering the space. It makes sense to use the safest driving direction at the most critical time.
Next, it keeps backing skills in tune. If drivers back regularly, it becomes no big deal, and things like parallel parking for example become non-events. I commonly see people do really stupid and dangerous things to extract themselves from a tight spot, when using their reverse gear would have been the simple and obvious solution.
Lastly, if there are few open spaces, and they are of the diagonal arraignment, if a space on the left side is encountered, it can be backed into with a ~45 degree turn. the same spot would require ~135 degree turn to pull in forward, and that would likely require some jockeying in even a mail jeep.
