Parking: pull in or back in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:46, and sometimes back in when no one else is around, because I don't want to slow down the process. It entirely depends if someone is waiting to park or not.

This (though a bit older). I prefer to back in, but won't hold up others to do so.

I find my field of view is much better when I am pulling out forward. I am not a nervous driver at all, but I am always worried when backing out (especially when parked next to an SUV) whether another car is racing through the lot or someone is walking and not paying attention/looking at their phone. I recognize that pedestrians have the right of way, but there is also a commonsense/awareness factor in pedestrians that seems to be more lacking these days.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I back in because it makes leaving safer, but I pass the first open spot I come to in case a short-tempered puller-inner is behind me

LEAVING may be safer, but the whole process of backing in is much less safe for people walking through the parking lot.

How on earth is backing into a spot at all less safe than pulling in, let alone "much less" so?

When someone is backing out of a spot, you can clearly see their reverse lights on, and know what the person is doing.

With the whole "backing in" circus, you go from drive to reverse and switch depending on the maneuver. It's harder for a pedestrian walking by to figure out WTF the person is going to do.

DP amd I'm struggling to understand how you are walking between the back of a car and an empty parking spot such that you are in danger.

That's how I feel when people claim that backing out is dangerous. I've been driving for 30 years, most of the time without a rear camera, and have never found it dangerous backing out. Or frankly, with other people backing out.

But when people back in, it's constantly a concern - they just expect everyone to stop and half for them. That's not how pedestrian safety works.

You very clearly have limited visibility into the lane (obscured by vehicles left/right) when backing out. You also can't look both behind left and behind right at the same time. Meanwhile You have perfectly clear visibility into a spot you're backing into (which is also FAR less likely to be occupied by a pedestrian).

Uh, this is why you go slow. Incrementally slow.

Truly, I swear people who back in are living on another planet with their claims of "safety." I get that leaving is safer. But backing into your spot? Nope.

In what parking scenario would you drive fast?

Backing into an unoccupied parking space that has no pedestrian traffic is far more safe than slowly - even incrementally slowly - backing into an open lane with limited backward visibility to both opposing directions and a reasonable expectation of both pedestrian and vehicle traffic from both directions... again - neither of which can you even see at the same time.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I back in because it makes leaving safer, but I pass the first open spot I come to in case a short-tempered puller-inner is behind me

LEAVING may be safer, but the whole process of backing in is much less safe for people walking through the parking lot.

How on earth is backing into a spot at all less safe than pulling in, let alone "much less" so?

When someone is backing out of a spot, you can clearly see their reverse lights on, and know what the person is doing.

With the whole "backing in" circus, you go from drive to reverse and switch depending on the maneuver. It's harder for a pedestrian walking by to figure out WTF the person is going to do.

DP amd I'm struggling to understand how you are walking between the back of a car and an empty parking spot such that you are in danger.

That's how I feel when people claim that backing out is dangerous. I've been driving for 30 years, most of the time without a rear camera, and have never found it dangerous backing out. Or frankly, with other people backing out.

Well, it's not dangerous for you. That's not the dangerous good backers-in are talking about
But when people back in, it's constantly a concern - they just expect everyone to stop and half for them. That's not how pedestrian safety works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hate backing in.

I hate how many people back in who are bad at it. If it takes you multiple maneuvers-stop doing it.

This. There's something so narcissistic and self indulgent about an ahole who stops and blocks traffic while they attempt to back their car into a spot. It's weirdly performative, self absorbed, so "I'm the only person in the world whose time matters", and it is annoying af. It screams, "I'm unable to pull into and back out of a parking space, so lemme eff up these people's day by taking 5 minutes to back in."

[Anonymous]

Back in:

There are not other cars waiting for you to park.
You are at an event where everyone leaves around the same time.

Pull in:

There are several cars waiting for you to park.
You have cargo to load or unload.

[Anonymous]

48, pull in. I just never needed to back in really.
I'm out and about when nobody else is. I do go cross the line when pulling in sometimes, but only when no cars around.
I may need to put something in my trunk.
I do take a quick look around before sitting in my car and taking off.
I parallel park in DC 80% of the time.
Busy parking lot in suburbs? Always pulling in.

[Anonymous]

Since I drive a longer car, I need to back in or else I won't be able to come out of some spots, especially places with really narrow road or alleyways. I forget what it is exactly but the angle is different when you're driving out forward vs backing out.

I used to know someone that managed valets at a restaurant in DC where they parked cars at a nearby garage. And he got mad at one of the valets because they parked a SUV front in in the at a spot in the garage that was impossible to have it come out without damaging it.

I do try to park further away and if I see a car come up behind me, I pass the spot that I'm looking and look for the next spot available when there's no car behind me. (unless it's a crowded parking lot and I know I won't be able to find another space)

[Anonymous]

47. I prefer backing in because I drive a smallish sedan and have much better visibility pulling out forward when some giant SUV parks next to me - I can't see around them if I'm nose-in. Or when I'm driving our family SUV and the parking lot has really narrow aisles & spots, I can actually park faster that way - with its clumsy turning radius, it takes two passes to maneuver forward into tight spots (fwd, back, fwd) whereas I can back in with one pass (fwd, back).

But I don't back in if I'm going to need to load a lot of groceries into the trunk, or if there's a line of cars behind me (unless I'm in the SUV and think it'll be faster than pulling in forward - just depends on the layout of the lot).

[Anonymous]

It just depends on the driver. I back in because I can do it just as fast as pulling in. Meanwhile tonight I watched a woman in a Tesla try to pull it and it took her three tries before she got it. And she was still crooked.

[Anonymous]

The nanny used to back in to the driveway, and then, upon leaving during the day, would forget to close the garage because it was out of her sight, so the house was vulnerable to robbers all day. Good times!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do not understand backing in at the grocery store. You may or may not be able to open your trunk and definitely can't get a cart back there!

I dont have a bunch of groceries.

Usually 2-3 bags. I dont need to open my trunk.

[Anonymous]

The anti-reverse movement is unsurprising. Most don't understand the geometry that shows why backing in is easier and if you look through any parking lot, a full 2/3s of those who have pulled in forwards cannot do so and stay between the lines. If they can't do that is it surprising that they are incapable of backing a car into a parking space?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The anti-reverse movement is unsurprising. Most don't understand the geometry that shows why backing in is easier and if you look through any parking lot, a full 2/3s of those who have pulled in forwards cannot do so and stay between the lines. If they can't do that is it surprising that they are incapable of backing a car into a parking space?

Once you kind of understand how to back, ie how to line up your car, checking mirrors and front, etc, it's not too hard.

But when I was younger, parallel parking was the part of the test that everyone would worry about and was supposed to be the hard part of the test.

And from what I heard, Maryland doesn't even test parallel parking anymore and replaced it with back in parking.

Which to me, makes no sense because it seems like they replaced the harder test with an easier one.

And again, going back to my younger days, going to places like DC and Bethesda, the only option was to parallel park. And in some parking garages in Baltimore (back then, not sure if it's still the case now) you had to parallel park next to a concrete barrier with no curb or anything for a boundary between your car and the concrete barrier.

Like sometimes I see people taking forever to back in park. Where those type of people probably shouldn't be backing in to park until they learn how.

But I've seen more cases of bystanders trying to coach drivers how to parallel park. And in one case a lady telling a younger guy to just get out of the car and she'd help him park his car.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Back in:

There are not other cars waiting for you to park.
You are at an event where everyone leaves around the same time.

Pull in:

There are several cars waiting for you to park.
You have cargo to load or unload.

+1
This is the way

[Anonymous]

I am convinced that the people who are most vehemently opposed-- to the point of personal insults!-- to backing in are the worst drivers in real life. They just can't understand how it's better, no matter how it's explained. That tells me that they don't really understand cars and how they maneuver. If you find parallel parking difficult, I bet that backing in seems like a variation on a difficult, stressful, time-consuming process. Because it takes YOU six tries to do it.

I've worked with my teenaged daughter on parallel parking and backing in (in unoccupied lots), and she didn't get it at first either. But once you get to an intermediate skill level, the superior maneuverability in reverse becomes crystal clear. Just keep trying, dears. You can do it. It takes practice, but it's not actually hard.