It is not a zero sum game. Overall backing in is safer and it is faster.
This is why it’s not a zero sum game.
The thing is, I park head-in most of the time, because I’m not good at reverse parking even if I know that it is better. So the OP’s insult to me just makes me laugh. 
I gave reasons why people park backing in. I don’t, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t valid reasons.
You people.
You back in because at this point you have the time. You haven’t done the job yet, nobody’s suspicious. This gives you a chance for a final case of the joint and there’s still time to back out (heh). Then, when you’ve done the job, you are in a much better position for a quick getaway in either direction.
My husband is an excellent backer-inner. Mostly, I notice this when I accompany him to his doctor’s visits at the orthopedic practice - large office with a day surgery, many patients who can’t park (age-related? mobility issues? sheer don’t-give-a-fuck-ery? I don’t know,) plus small-ish parking spaces. Tony can reverse the Suburban into a spot on the first try, and we can get out easily, without worrying about scraping the Buick next to us, or running over a wheelchair-bound patient or small child on crutches behind us. I’m nowhere near as good as Tony is, but I learned at the dry cleaners a couple of years ago: when backing up a large pickup, I cannot see a small truck at the drive-thru behind me, even with three mirrors correctly set and shoulder-checks on both sides. Thank Og it was a truck, and not a kid in a stroller!
Tony habitually backs in to park, because that makes his job easier and safer. He’s been a cop for more than two decades. The vast majority of the time, he has more time to park than to leave - stopping for lunch, dropping off paperwork, even serving a warrant or responding to minor complaints (which is most of them.) Invariably, though, as soon as his sandwich is dropped off by his waitress, a hot call comes over the radio. Tony can leave his parking space quickly and more safely by pulling out. And no, if he’s responding to an emergent situation where people or property are in imminent danger, he doesn’t worry about his parking, but 99% of the time? His vehicle is backed into a parking space. This is the preferred practice for the law enforcement agencies (and many private companies) that I’m aware of, because it’s ultimately faster and safer for everyone.
I always back into my parking spot at work because having to back out in the afternoon means I can’t see students about to walk behind me, other teachers leaving, cross-country rampaging through the parking lot, etc. It doesn’t bother anybody because I’m there a good hour before most of the faculty show up.
Lately most of the teachers in the lot have been doing the same.
With properly adjusted side mirrors (and experience too?) it can be far easier to back in with tight clearance to the sides - garage, parking lot, alley, or whatever.
You may be on to something!
SLIGHTLY related:
http://www3.scienceblog.com/community/older/1997/B/199701123.html
My wife was bitching about this topic last week.
Looking at both sides of the argument, I guess “it depends”. If I were King of Parking Id probably decree, unless the law says you must, declare no BIP if theres a car behind you. There certainly is no reason to do so if its a large mall or big box store parking lot that is half full and you can easily pull into a parking spot nose out by pulling nose in into the parking spot behind. If you want to park closer to the store, BIP only if no one is behind you.
Personally, I drive a big obnoxious gas guzzling SUV and prefer to pull in nose first, then back out. Of course, I have a back up camera, too.
Why, oh why, do idjits continue to think pulling through an angled spot is okay? For pete’s sake, when spots are angled in a parking lot, that’s because traffic moving through the aisles is designed to go one-way. All you’ve done by pulling through is to set yourself up nose-first INTO THE ONCOMING TRAFFIC. You dope.
I seem to see this most often at Walmart, for some reason. Yet another in the long list of reasons to visit there very rarely …
They would use the hallways if it weren’t for Driver’s Ed.
When I mentioned “pulling through” its for 90 degree angle parking spots only. Pulling through angled spots is asking for bad news.
Personally I pull in and back out.
I back in probably 75% of the time. I believe it to be safer and more efficient.
Again, I question the logic – you’re just creating more situations where someone has to wait for the person to reverse out of the parking space later. No time saved, no more politeness, but huge increase in risk.
Think about parallel parking. You signal, the car behind you stops without overlapping the space, you pull into the space in reverse in one motion. This is what every parking lot should be, too.
Of course, the above works on the street unless the car behind you is some rube from the suburbs who doesn’t know what it means to flip on your turn signal in the middle of the street and blocks the space, or you don’t know how to reverse properly, of course – but the rubes and the bad drivers are the ones pulling head-first into perpendicular parking who we need to stamp out.
What we really need is to replace more on-street parallel spots and every angled spot in the world with back-in angled parking – just like it’s nearly impossible to park in a standard angled spot back-in, it’s nearly impossible to park in one of these spots front-in. This will force everyone to learn to drive in reverse like they should have when they got their permit at age 15.
http://www.hampdenhappenings.org/HCC_WEB/Zoning_Pdf/RAP/San_Francisco.pdf
I do not particularly care how you park, as long as you’re between the lines and not too close to either line, so I can get in and out of my car.
What I do not like is when I am attempting to get to the parking spot three cars PAST you, and you are engaged in one of those insane thirty-two-point sawtooth turnarounds because either there is not enough room for you to do what you want to do, or you don’t really know how to pull into a parking spot backwards, or you’re just an inconsiderate asshole.
If you can pull into that parking spot backwards as fast as you could have pulled into it forwards, more power to you.
A competent driver can always do a better job of hugging the aisle of parked cars by reversing in and driving out, for the same reasons about the basic physics of front-wheel-turn cars that make it easier to precisely control a turn in reverse in the first place. Keeping cars from blocking the flow of passing traffic is a major reason for backing in all the time.
An incompetent driver should not be trusted to blindly reverse into traffic, and should be encouraged to back in to spaces for that reason alone.
Am I the only one disappointed that the thread title wasn’t a euphemism for anal sex?
True. When backing into my space at my destination the snow on my back and side windows is more likely to have blown off.
Parking forwards and leaving backwards is simpler and more effective. Haberdash is a maniacal zealot.
As are all of us back in parkers, I suppose.
That’s why all of these posts are started by… wait… that can’t be… It appears they’re all started by head first parkers… not maniacal zealot back in parkers…
Man, you’re really good at being wrong today!