Youre not being a jerk if you smile and wave as youre walking away.
Let it go. Just let it go.
Just throwing this one out there; the company I work for requires that persons driving on business for them, or parking at one of their facilities, reverse park everywhere that it’s practical. This means you are pulling forward to depart, making it a bit easier to see the douchebags who try to whip past as you are pulling out.
Not always practical, depending on the parking configuration, but it does tend to lower the blood pressure a little.
It does help a little, but not that much, especially if you don’t have a big car.
I drive a Honda Civic, and the biggest impediment to my vision in parking lots is not whether i’m facing forwards or backwards, but the fact that every fucker in this part of the world drives a motherfucking SUV or pickup truck or minivan. If i have one of those on either side of me—and that’s the case at least fifty percent of the time—i can’t see shit until i’m well into the main aisle.
Waiting for a parking spot is OK. What gets me are the parking space stalkers, who’ll slowly cruise behind you through the lot, following you to wherever you’re parked. I feel no compunction about leading them to what they think is the Nirvana Spot, then angling between spaces to an inaccessible location where I’m really parked. 
That’s another one of my parking lot peeves. You really don’t know where they’ll go - as someone on the Dope said years ago, the best driving is PREDICTABLE - if you’re going cross-country in the parking lot, I can’t anticipate where you’re aiming.
Same problem with my Toyota Corolla. Sometimes if I’m hedged in with large vehicles on both sides, I’ll give a couple of toots on my horn before I start backing up, in the hopes that it will alert a driver who is tear-assing along behind me to be aware that I’m coming out. I also try to pull through parking spaces as often as I can - I feel much more comfortable looking forward between the large vehicles than looking backwards.
Heh. 
We’ve come to the conclusion that parking lots really are a No Man’s Land of driving rules and etiquette - I’m pretty sure that some drivers just drive into the lot, turn their cars off, and get out - they make no attempt to even try to put their car in a parking space.
I do this as well. Not because of the spot issue, but because I don’t want strangers following me through a parking lot.
I don’t mind people waiting for me, though. I’ll even rush a little to get out of their way. They are doing me a favor, after all. They are blocking traffic and making it easier for me to back out.
My feeling exactly.
Unless they’re so close they don’t leave you room to get out. Usually this will dawn on them after awhile.
I will never forget this story, hope you enjoy.
I come home one night and my wife tells me sadly, “My step brother was hit on his motorcycle. He is in the hospital”
“Oh my God”, I replied with sincerity, “how is he?”
“Well, he broke his back, both legs, some ribs and his face is all messed up. But, no major internal injuries to his organs,” she told me with a somber voice.
So, I felt really bad for the guy. I mean, he was kind of a douche at times, but no one deserves that. He had done some electric work for me and messed it up, and I was thinking about making him come back and do it. He also charged me more than I would have had to pay a contractor. I did this all because he complained he was always “out of work” and could not “find a job”. I discovered via his work why that is so, but, you know, family and all that… I digress.
I ask, “how did it happen?”
My wife tells me “Mom said some car hit him at 65 miles an hour.”
Wow I think, he must have been trying to merge onto the highway and got nailed by some guy not paying attention to bikes.
So, we go to the hospital. Mom-in-law, who is very sweet, is crying and upset. She is very upset with the motorist who struck him. I am consoling her and taking her side of course.
A couple of days later, he is ready to go home or go to an extended care facility. He will be in a bunch of braces/casts etc… for months. Mom-in-law is gonna care for him at home.
I go and visit to be nice and bring some stuff over. It seems safe now to ask some questions (I try not to be the guy that, at the moment of a tragedy, acts like every other idiot out there who asks a thousand who, what, what, where, why and how questions.)
So I finally ask the questions,
Me: “So what happened?”
Mom-in-Law: “He was going about 65 and a car hit him.”
Me: “Wow, where was he?”
Mom-inLaw: 'At Walmart in ******"
Me: “Oh, wow, that intersection is pretty nasty, right on a 55 MPH highway. So he got hit by someone trying to turn into the highway?”
Mon-in-law: “No, it was in the parking lot.”
Me: “…ummmm… you mean right outside the parking lot on route *****”
Mom-in-law: “No, in the parking lot, someone backed out of space and ran right into him.”
Me: “Ahhh… ummmm… ok… gotta go Mom, bye.”
I was, just like you my friendly reader, mystified. This fucking idiot was going 65, on a motorcycle, in a parking lot, in a crowded Walmart parking lot at that, and he and she were both mad at the driver of the car.
What fucking idiot drives 65 in a parking lot?
Needless to say, although he did a crap job on my electric work in the house, I decided to not call him and make a fuss about him coming over and fixing his mess up. I paid for another electrician to come in and do the work… I did cancel the flowers I sent him though.
This 1000x this. For some reason Costco is the worst for this behaviour. I’ll be half way out of the parking spot with one car on each side of me wanting the spot both of them stopped in the exact middle of the two lane aisle. Where exactly do you think I’m going unless you move your ass?
On a motorcycle? Charles Darwin, paging Dr. Charles Darwin to the big red smear…
I don’t think I, or pretty much anyone else for that matter, would see the motorcycle until it was too late. At 65mph, you’re moving 95 feet per second. In two seconds, you’ve covered about 16 spots wide in the average parking lot, and given that people have to look in multiple directions as they’re backing up, and you’re not a car (for visibility purposes)…
Here in the land of milk and honey, it isn’t just the cars that cross too close behind while I’m trying to back out, it’s the pedestrians as well. I cannot see out the back of either the van or the truck - do these folks have a death wish?
I always love the folks in the local Target parking lot who think that if they pretend not to see the pedestrians in the marked pedestrian walk in front of the store’s doors they can drive on through. The people who do this are a lovely combination of sour-faced older women and impatient ‘don’t have anywhere to be but don’t have time to wait’ young male drivers.
I used to drive produce and other foodstuffs local delivery in a big 8 pallet 10 wheeled straight body truck. One of the big hospitals downtown only had two bays in the loading dock. During the day it was common for two trucks backed in and two, three, or four more waiting their turn.
One day I was drinking my coffee waiting my turn, I was next. A truck pulled out and an UPS driver who was clearly there after me decided to dart into the dock next from the other direction. WTF? I mean c’mon, we are all pros and do this everyday and you are pulling this shit?
I looked over at a dairy truck driver I knew by ours paths criscrossing for years being on similar routs and schedules. He looked at me and gestured at the UPS guy and mouthed WTF too.
I reached over and rolled down my other window and he rolled his window down and we shouted to each other about what an asshole. I don’t remember if it was his idea or mine that asked the other; “wanna fuck with him?”
We moved our trucks, blocking in the UPS idiot and went in and had a leisurley cup of coffee. (about 10 minutes maybe) When we came out the guy was almost purple he was so mad. sputtering about how we can’t do that.
Buddy, we can and did. I told him something like I know they hump all day and are on a tight schedule. If he would have came across the parking lot and said something like, Dude I got a bitch of a load today, can I cut in line I would have said OK.
My truck had the company name and phone number in huge letters on the side, so did the dairy truck. I waited to see if he was mad enough to call and complain, he never did, he knew he was in the wrong. Not like calling and complaining would have been any good.
I was working for a small family owend and operated buisness. My boss used to go to the central market/food terminal every morning around 5:30am. One day around 8:00am the I answered the phone and a man was ranting that earlier that day he was almost in an accident at the market and wanted to talk to the owner…
I knew that there was only one truck on the road early and handed the phone to my boss. He roared “that was me you fucking moron! How goddamn stupid are you to try to dart between a truck backing up and a loading dock? I should have hit your dumb ass.”
–click–
I miss that job…
In a Walmart parking lot, there’s an excellent chance he would have killed a kid, had he not been hit. He should count himself lucky on that score.
I fully endorse this pit!
A few days ago as I was leaving shudder Walmart, I was backing out my car, and was ALMOST out enough to start moving forward. This asshole comes flying around the corner, and doesn’t want to wait, so he drives his truck to within an inch of my bumper. In other words; go back in so I can go by.
So, I placed my vehicle in park and rolled down the window to shout “hey asshole, I just went grocery shopping and have enough food to live in this car for a while, so fuck off and let me back out.” They still wouldn’t back out so I reclined my seat and got ready for a nap. He took the hint.
I wish I had a book at the moment to really make him freak.
This is why I pull through parking spaces when there isn’t anyone parked in the space in front of me. It is a lot safer driving forward than backward, even though pulling through pisses off a whole 'nother set of people.
Pull through or back in, so you don’t have to back out when you exit the spot. Much safer way to handle parking lots.
Thanks for doing that – made my day a little brighter.
I don’t do this as readily any more, but I sometimes will when I know there is no traffic on that side. With the prevalence of SUVs, Vans, Minivans, large Pickup trucks it’s very easy to pull into an empty spot and not see someone pulling through. Who would be judged liable in that situation?