Is Backing Into Your Parking Space Okay or Not?
An in-depth analysis yields a definitive answer
I was in a crowded parking lot yesterday, complete with a security guard directing traffic, when I saw a spot on my right.
I gunned it gently to grab the coveted terrain when I was met with an SUV’s taillights reversing toward me, forcing me to slam on the brakes and back up a few feet to allow the vehicle to pivot between the yellow lines.
Reversing my car added to the managed chaos in the lot, as now the three cars behind me had to back up slightly too.
My error in the situation was assuming that, if the car in front of me were searching for a parking space, they would simply pull their vehicle into it without taking the step of pulling clear past it in order to take the preemptive step of backing into it.
No matter how often I experience this I am incapable of accounting for the fact that roughly ten percent of drivers choose to back into their parking spots, and I am annoyed each time.
It’s like playing basketball against someone who’s left handed. You understand it occurs but it seems freshly unexpected still.
As I pulled past the SUV to continue circling the lot I spied the mustachioed driver, or Captain of the Vehicle as he likely considers himself, looking satisfied with his maneuver, perhaps reporting back to an imaginary traffic-control agent that Stage 1 of his mission was complete and he would now be completing Stage 2 which would entail buying a Gatorade Fierce Melon.
As you can probably tell I have a certain bias. I believe these people to be pricks.
Likely self-important types, finicky and retentive to a high degree - the same people who cycle in the middle of the road, return broccoli at the grocery store while the line is busy, and sit attentively nodding with proper posture while a flight attendant asks them if they are able to perform the duties required of sitting in an exit row, to which they enthusiastically answer, Yes!
We all know these people, they are our friends, family, and co-workers, the co-workers who inform you that the fridge in the break room was two degrees too warm and that they turned it down to balance out the recent inclement weather.
While it’s true that they are the person who is likely to corner you and provide you a full box-score of their kid’s little league game, they are also the neighbor who brings you package over if it was delivered to the wrong house and lets you know that your rear front tire is dangerously low on air pressure.
Clearly there’s a cognitive divide between myself and these people. When I see a parking spot, I pull directly into it. I don’t think about what backing out of it is going to entail.
But, while sometimes deemed irresponsible, this personality type also often enjoys greater success than their more cautious counterparts - they take a leap of faith and pull into a parking space without thinking about what’s going to happen in the future.
It’s difficult to imagine a brash, trailblazing Steve Jobs or Barack Obama backing into a parking space.
I’d like to get to the bottom of this once and for all.
The strongest argument for backing in is this: Backing out of a space is dangerous.
Visibility is poor, and other cars, children, or animals could sneak into the space behind your car between the time that you get into it and the time that you reverse out.
In a high-traffic area the dangers of backing out are even more pronounced and obvious - we’ve all experienced this - cocking your head back as cars zoom past as the tail-end of your car pokes out into traffic.
It’s incredibly stressful, and obviously being able to pull forward out of the spot with full visibility is a much safer option.
Of course for every action there must be a reaction, so my first thought, which I’m sure the reader is considering as well, is that you have to back up at some point, right?
So is backing into a spot and pulling out head-on safer than pulling in head-on and then backing out?
It turns out: Probably, or, maybe?
I pored over a few Reddit threads to get varying perspectives on the issue, but I found this tidbit, posted by a user Lacqui, to be logically very sound, “When you back in to a space you usually have the right-of-way, so you can survey everything around you and then back-in.”
This is undeniable. Backing-in allows you to essentially pause everything, assess the situation, alert vehicles behind you as to what you are doing, take your time to safely park, and have yourself readied to pull out head-on, without any potentially dangerous complications of backing out.
Yet I think an obvious obvious counter-point is missing here: Backing into a spot is clearly more dangerous than pulling into a spot.
I have no proof of this, but I suspect people who back in have smashed into a few other cars or safety posts in the process of doing so during their lifetimes.
I further believe they are the type of person who prides themselves on their buttoned-down in-control image, and proceeds to tell their spouse that someone ran into them in the parking lot, and then takes their car to a body shop the first thing the following morning and continues backing into spots without ever revealing this dark secret to any human soul.
Unfortunately this is all anecdotal, and if you only factor in the safety of the person doing the backing in, it is indeed safer.
Yet this is also ignoring the entire ecosystem of a parking lot. When this person yesterday decided to back in, in front of me, I then had to reverse, and this could have caused a fender-bender not only to my car, but any of the cars behind me who then had to back up as part of this chain reaction.
The more I thought about it, the more the inherent safety or lack thereof was purely a judgement call on the part of the driver - and after reading through Reddit I had an epiphany - that’s the entire point - it’s not necessarily safety, it’s the control of the situation!
These people tend to feel that everyone should wait for them in order to perform what they have deemed to be a safer task. As the minority of all parkers, they believe that their system should override the one that is overwhelmingly more practiced.
The language proponents of backing in used on Reddit was telling, with one user stating, “If you're backing in, you are already on the road and (should) have full awareness of what's going on around you. You also (should) have scouted your parking spot as you passed it.”
Scouted your parking space? Isn’t that a bit grandiose to describe the activity of noticing an empty parking space? Is this technically reconnaissance? Who talks like that? Well, the backing in crowd does.
Take user VanRando who states “You will find that you have superior maneuverability this way.”
Then I noticed another pattern. User LWOP wrote “I drive a big-ass SUV. If you practice, it is a LOT easier to park by backing in than is front in parking.”
Indeed, much of this discussion centered around the perils of parking an oversized SUV - remember, the vehicle in front of me was an SUV! - and I realized that this is a problem particular to oversized vehicles.
Of course it never occurred to me to back my sedan into a parking space, it’s completely unnecessary unless you have an enormous bulky SUV, or, like user VanRando - a van, I assume.
Now I am not prepared to stereotype the drivers of SUVs in general but let’s look at their choice of vehicle from a semiotic perspective.
They like to sit higher than everyone else on the road, and they have chosen a vehicle that would be more likely to destroy another vehicle in a demolition derby or head on collision.
Perhaps this type of person is more likely to have control issues.
Not to mention, in many parts of the country driving a Suburban which gets six miles to the gallon is considered wasteful, environmentally irresponsible, almost gaudy to the point of reflecting a certain level of entitlement, and it’s obvious that if you survey the people who drive SUVs they lean right, politically.
I’m not prepared to go there. But I do think that people who drive SUVs are statistically more likely to have six children and an approach to life that is more self centered than globally or community centered, and so it would follow that they feel it is within their right to inconvenience the rest of society for what they deem to be in their best interest.
Overlooked in all of this is a subset of people who are likely stalling.
They may be in fear of whatever office building awaits them and prolonging their arrival as long as possible.
They may subscribe to some type of bohemian virtue and are imagining how groovy everything will be when they don’t have to worry about backing out as they leave the smoke shop - essentially taking any opportunity to delay the inevitable event of accomplishing a single task.
All things considered, after doing the research I have concluded that backing in is not about safety or convenience.
It’s about the person doing it and you can learn a lot about them based on this action - such as that they are the type who has zero qualms about placing a thirty person catering order at a taco stand during lunch time with fourteen people waiting behind them.