Why do people back into parking spots?

cars wrote:

Parking Cheese wrote:

The train station lot I park in has slanted spaces and people drive the wrong way in the lot and back in. The funny thing is the parking is tight so the people that back in have to do a pull forward, back up, pull forward to get out since the turn radius is too small for even small cars.

Ok, but we're talking about parking cars. Parking trains is obviously completely different.

Performing later tonight at the comedy club.

It's a standard safety practice to minimize egress time in the event of an emergency. It's not about ease of parking or saving overall time, it's about when you invest time in the backing up portion of parking. When you arrive and are parking you theoretically know the situation is safe so can afford the few extra seconds to back in to a spot. If there is an emergency evacuation those few extra seconds across multiple cars can cost lives.

John Utah wrote:

cars wrote:

Ok, but we're talking about parking cars. Parking trains is obviously completely different.

Performing later tonight at the comedy club.

Huh?

HS&E wrote:

It's a standard safety practice to minimize egress time in the event of an emergency. It's not about ease of parking or saving overall time, it's about when you invest time in the backing up portion of parking. When you arrive and are parking you theoretically know the situation is safe so can afford the few extra seconds to back in to a spot. If there is an emergency evacuation those few extra seconds across multiple cars can cost lives.

Technically accurate, but can you provide some non military/law enforcement examples? Actual not hypothetical. First hand only. In the USA, not Afghanistan.

John Utah wrote:

HS&E wrote:

It's a standard safety practice to minimize egress time in the event of an emergency. It's not about ease of parking or saving overall time, it's about when you invest time in the backing up portion of parking. When you arrive and are parking you theoretically know the situation is safe so can afford the few extra seconds to back in to a spot. If there is an emergency evacuation those few extra seconds across multiple cars can cost lives.

Technically accurate, but can you provide some non military/law enforcement examples? Actual not hypothetical. First hand only. In the USA, not Afghanistan.

Yeah. I know Americans are in love with our cars, but I don't think the prevailing thought on 9/11 was "oh God, I need to get to the parking deck to save my car."

In a state of emergency, I'm hitting the street and running like hell, and likely getting wherever I'm going way faster than anyone dumb enough to try to drive through the gridlock that will almost certainly exist.

Either way, you have to go backwards sometime, either in or out. I think backing in is easier. If there is traffic, backing out can be a challenge.

not hard, slow wrote:

It's faster to pull into a spot forward and then back out than it is to back in and then pull out forward.

Not if there is traffic when you are trying to back out. It takes much more time to back out with traffic than to back in without traffic.

I drove for a living for 37 years. The larger companies like Fed Ex and Airborne Express have annual safety classes where the stress the importance of backing into a parking place. It is definitely safer to pull out than to back out. (I'm sure all you genius's know better however.) Once you've done it a few times it becomes easy.

cars wrote:

John Utah wrote:

Performing later tonight at the comedy club.

Huh?

The train joke. It's funny, corny but funny.

old guy 71 wrote:

I drove for a living for 37 years. The larger companies like Fed Ex and Airborne Express have annual safety classes where the stress the importance of backing into a parking place. It is definitely safer to pull out than to back out. (I'm sure all you genius's know better however.) Once you've done it a few times it becomes easy.

Makes sense for that kind of vehicle.

old guy 71 wrote:

I drove for a living for 37 years. The larger companies like Fed Ex and Airborne Express have annual safety classes where the stress the importance of backing into a parking place. It is definitely safer to pull out than to back out. (I'm sure all you genius's know better however.) Once you've done it a few times it becomes easy.

Again, you're talking about a huge time waster for everyone behind you. I don't care if there is some negligible "safety" improvement that only becomes relevant when you are operating a massive fleet of vehicles. I do care if I have to stop behind you for several seconds.

Let's think about speed instead of insurance loss protection.

not hard, slow wrote:

old guy 71 wrote:

I drove for a living for 37 years. The larger companies like Fed Ex and Airborne Express have annual safety classes where the stress the importance of backing into a parking place. It is definitely safer to pull out than to back out. (I'm sure all you genius's know better however.) Once you've done it a few times it becomes easy.

Again, you're talking about a huge time waster for everyone behind you. I don't care if there is some negligible "safety" improvement that only becomes relevant when you are operating a massive fleet of vehicles. I do care if I have to stop behind you for several seconds.

Let's think about speed instead of insurance loss protection.

Let's think about you as an entitled jackass who expects people to arrange their priorities around your convenience.

John Utah wrote:

I don't have any problem with the concept of backing into spots, but I've seen many parking lots with signs stating something like "head in parking only". I don't fully understand the reasons for the signs, but I for sure have seen them many times.

I always guessed they are trying to minimize the risk of structure damage by clumsy drivers back up to a wall. Otherwise, I see no reason whatever to ban backing in.

What are you going to do with all the time you save by refusing to back into a parking spot?

Homeland Insecurity wrote:

not hard, slow wrote:

Again, you're talking about a huge time waster for everyone behind you. I don't care if there is some negligible "safety" improvement that only becomes relevant when you are operating a massive fleet of vehicles. I do care if I have to stop behind you for several seconds.

Let's think about speed instead of insurance loss protection.

Let's think about you as an entitled jackass who expects people to arrange their priorities around your convenience.

You are the one expecting people to arrange their schedules around your convenience when you force everyone to stop so that you can slowly lumber into your parking space. I bet you're the same guy who stops to read his subway map on the stairs to the station, and then waits until he's in the turn style to start digging though his back back for his card.

I forget where I saw it, but there was an article (or interview, or study, or something) correlating personalities of people who back in to park vs. people who pull in forward. Essentially, they found some correlation between those who back in and their financial well-being. They both exhibit behaviors in delayed gratification. I'm positive there's other factors in play as well, but still interesting.

I'll see if I can find it.

If it's a high traffic area with people hunting for spaces, it's better to pull in.

Mostly because it's quicker and people are waiting for you to park so they can move on.

And if someone's following behind you, they will take the spot as you pass the spot to get in backup position.

Backing out doesn't take long, since you don't have to be as accurate when leaving the spot.

There is the vision issue when backing out in a high traffic area though.

Now, in a parking garage, especially without a lot traffic, it's better to back in.

The pass through lane is often tight and you get a better angle with the turning wheels on the outer part of the spot.

Then you have good vision and a better angle to pull out.

There is also the question of your objective.

Are you shopping? Then you pull in to get easy access to the back of the car to load your stuff.

Now ... if it's a two space where you can pull through, do you back in and then back through to have the back of your car facing out to load packages?

I was a City Carrier for the USPS a while back. We were taught in driving class (had to learn to drive those LLV's from the right side) to always back in if we needed to park. That's why they have the big dish mirrors on the back of them - so you can see how close you are to other vehicles/objects. It was constantly repeated that it was the safer way to go. There are/were exceptions but if you were spotted by a Supervisor, you better have a damn good excuse.