This morning as I was making my usual run to Starbuck’s (because there are no decent coffee shops in Tyson’s Corner), I had to brake rather suddenly because the little red foreign car in front of me decided to back into its parking space.
"ARGH!" I yelled. Well, not really “argh.” It was a word that started with the letter “F,” if you must know…
Aside from the exit ramp from I Street SE to I-295 South (the one where the lane just STOPS, thereby making it next to impossible to merge into traffic), nothing gets my goat whilst in the driver’s seat more than folks backing into parking spaces. Numerous times I’ve had to sit in the parking lot waiting for some schmo to slowly and carefully back in to their chosen spot. I remain in a bad mood for a good ten minutes after that. Why can’t they just pull in? Don’t they see I’m right behind them? Rudy Rudertons! It just chafes me in all the wrong places.
Even so, you can hear me sing “Hallelujah!” when I get the chance to pull into one parking space and cross over to the other side, thus enabling me to pull out of the space when I'm ready to leave--LOVE pull-throughs! I do understand the advantages of pulling quickly and easily out of a parking space. I just don’t like be waiting tappity tappity tap behind people who back in.
I wish not so nice things would happen to them.
I wrote a blog post very early on about my shameful driving habits. I’m still hard at work on improving them. So today I did what every gal does who wants to take the high road and start behaving civily: I Googled “drivers backing into parking spaces.” And found the following:
- Traffic Engineering - Back-in vs. Pull-in Parking - which is better?
- People Who Back Into Parking Spaces Can Kiss My Ass
- Honk if You hate when drivers back into parking spaces
- If you're parking smart, you're parking backward
If you're in a relatively quiet parking lot and you're particularly adept at reversing your Armada or Land Cruiser or some such behemoth into a space equipped for a particularly large clown car, go ahead. Have at it. But during busier times, saving yourself a few seconds at the end of your shopping spree won't make up for the havoc you can cause by backing in.
I'd say backing (blindly if you are parked next to a larger vehicle) into moving traffic is more likely to result in injury than backing into a space between two stationary vehicles. Given a choice between scrapes and dents on one hand or rear-end crashes on the other, I'd choose the scrapes and dents.
So I get it. On the whole, it’s safer. And really, I’m only waiting for a few extra seconds, right? But to the point of Ms. Hyman, what if you’re in a very crowded parking lot and you decide to back in, thereby increasing the number of unmentionable chafed parts? Sounds like a no-win situation.
In the end, I like this theory:
I believe it’s rooted in theatrics. I think backwards-parkers are putting on a show of some sort, just showing off. They believe it makes them seem nonconformist, jaunty, and to be marching to a different drummer. You know, like people who are defined by their hatred of a popular TV show, or who tell everyone about their love of fast food pickles.
Happy Friday, ya’ll. Be safe in those parking lots…you never know what you might encounter…
