A lot of parking lots in the US have angled parking so you can’t really back in.
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I see people back in to those spots. Probably not as high a rate but it still happens.
fwiw my kids are way more likely than me to back into spots but they also are completely useless without the backup camera
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also people who back in to spots at the grocery store are psychos
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Easier to put groceries in if you have a trunk.
DC has a bunch of reversed angled spots that are back in only. So much more efficient - although occasionally you’ll see the horrible driver who tries a few times and then gives up and drives away.
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It’s easier to back in in many situations, like if the space is tight.
So when you back into a spot, you have to thread the needle between two cars into something like a 8.5 or 9’ wide spot while twisting your body/head to look behind you, something you do a tiny fraction of the time that you are operating a vehicle.
When you back out of a parking space, you have the gigantic space of the thoroughfare to luxuriate into whilst contorted and control-degraded.
Obviously there are some situations where backing in can be EV (sporting event or concert where pulling straight out into bottlenecked traffic is superior), but that feels like the exception to me and not the rule.
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It’s totally changed with the camera.
My son lives in the boonies and always backs his truck into the garage (predating cameras). When my grandson was four he mastered backing in his little electric car using his mirrors.
I mostly go in straight unless I’m going to an event parking lot. Backing out in the dark with a thousand cars and drunks is too sketchy.
Given these facts:
-The parking spot requires a 90 degree change of direction from the travel lane with limited space.
-The car’s back wheels are in a fixed direction with turning accomplished by the fronts.
Backing in is objectively superior. It’s not a debatable opinion, it follows from the laws of physics.
Consider an idealized model of a car with zero width:
-The front of the car follows an exact track defined by the turn angle of the front tires.
-The back of the car can only move in the direction of the vehicle. The lateral component of the turn vector rotates the direction of the vehicle around the rear tires.
Implications:
-The rear track is always inside of the front track.
Now assuming space is more limited in the parking spot than the travel lane, it’s advantageous to keep the wider track (front) maneuvering in the travel lane, both when parking and when leaving the parking spot. If the car is longer than a certain length and/or the parking space is tighter than a certain width it becomes impossible to pull straight in forwards in one shot.
If there are other considerations, like heavy traffic when you’re trying to park, go ahead and park forward to get out of the travel lane faster. But to take that position when no such considerations are driving the decision is wrong, and to look down on those who are more correct is absurd.
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this guy fucks
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boo this man
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Elon being a huge asshole was obvious by the time the first Cybertruck was sold.
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There are parking lots here in good old USA#1 that will ticket you for backing in
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I think my best argument is that if you forward in, you may still get to forward out if the space in front of you becomes vacant. The backers have a 50-50 proposition every time.
You should be using your side mirrors to back into a tight space, not turning around.
Perhaps things have changed, but my Driver’s Ed teacher would have a stroke if you backed up without looking behind you. Maybe glance at mirrors, but my understanding was that you had better depth perception when you actually look instead of using mirrors/cameras.
While I like d10’s approach, I think physics only gets you so far in this situation. How you park is partially culturally determined. I.E., if you don’t do what I expect or you do something differently than I would, you’re an asshole.
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Your drivers Ed teach was dumb. When you are backing into a tight space, you don’t need depth perception to judge the lateral distance between your car and the object on either side of you. Plus, if you are looking over your shoulder you can’t even see the side of your car or in many cases the object next to you if it’s low down.
Fingers crossed there is no kid behind you!