[starman]

How do you park? People have been parking head-out lately at work and it annoys the piss out of me because when I open the back door, I sometime whack their side view mirror.

Mike

[turtle777]

Thread title is misleading.



-t

[Timo]

parallel

[Albert Pujols]

vertically

[ort888]

People who park by backing into a spot drive me nuts. My wife does it all the time. The problem is, is that she is a horrible parker. It takes her between 20 and 60 seconds to line herself up right and park. She also cannot seem to do it without asking me if there is room on my side. I always respond "I don't know, if you are unable to determine if there is room on this side without my help, maybe you shouldn't be parking backwards".

She does it so she can pull out quicker in the morning. I guarantee that she spends 45 seconds every night parking so that she can save 5 seconds in the morning. It's such a small stupid thing, but it makes me batty.

[ghporter]

Here are The Rules: If the parking is diagonal, you MUST park head in. If it's straight (all the spots 90° to the lane) then it is allowable to park facing in or out (pulling through is acceptable). This is based on the U.S. Uniform Vehicle Code, by the way.

What gripes me is that people treat parking lots as "not real driving," so they do all sorts of stupid, lame, and downright dangerous stuff-such as driving the wrong way down a lane of diagonal parking. This doesn't let the driver see who's moving where, and it makes it harder for people trying to pull out of parking spaces to see that wrong-way driver.

And 99% of all drivers are not as good at backing as they think they are. The other 1% either know they're not that great, or are truly good (I'm in the former category). Unfortunately, much of the majority THINKS they're fantastic at it, especially when they are driving LARGE vehicles. It is ludicrous to see how badly some people park large trucks; I've seen four spaces taken up by one large truck, and it wasn't even terribly long, just really badly parked. Of course people who drive small cars aren't completely innocent either, but it takes special skill to hose up a simple job of parking a compact car enough to mess with other parking spaces.

[nredman]

head in - head out is way too much work....there is a guy in my apartment with a big ass truck that parks head out...it really bothers me i think i am going to start doing it too right next to him

[Amorya]

Well, since you're not allowed to reverse out of a drive onto a road, or out of a minor road onto a more major road, then head out is blatantly the way to go - do so in car parks and it keeps you in practice.

Amorya

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by ort888

People who park by backing into a spot drive me nuts.

Agreed. 90% of the people I work with do this.

Originally Posted by ort888

My wife does it all the time. The problem is, is that she is a horrible parker. It takes her between 20 and 60 seconds to line herself up right and park. She also cannot seem to do it without asking me if there is room on my side. I always respond "I don't know, if you are unable to determine if there is room on this side without my help, maybe you shouldn't be parking backwards".

Excellent response. I'm going to use this.

Originally Posted by ort888

She does it so she can pull out quicker in the morning. I guarantee that she spends 45 seconds every night parking so that she can save 5 seconds in the morning. It's such a small stupid thing, but it makes me batty.

I tell people this all the time. To pull into the spot takes 1 second. To back out takes maybe 5 seconds. 6 seconds total to park if you pull into the space. But if you back into a space, 20-30 seconds backing in and 1 second pulling out. You do the math.

I have to admit, when I can do a pull through and park facing out I take advantage of that.

[Sage]

I find that in tight, compact parking spaces (like at my school), backing into a spot is actually easier, because your car’s pivot point is reversed. See, the problem is that the aisles in my school’s lot are incredibly narrow, so if you try to swing straight into a parking spot, you’ll spend a good minute trying to cut in as close as possible, backing up, cutting in as close as possible, backing up, rinse and repeat; all because the pivot point is outside of the parking spot. When backing into a spot though, your pivot point is inside, so it’s so much easier to swing in and align the car. I can back into a spot correctly the first time, while it usually takes me two or three times to properly align my car when going head-in. I drive a wagon, so I have no problem judging the placement of the back end of my car.

With larger aisles, it’s not really an issue either way. In that case, I usually align my car so that I don’t have to put up my sunshade.

[Teronzhul]

Originally Posted by Sage

-snip-

Agreed. This becomes more noticeable with vehicles that have long wheelbases like pickup trucks.

[OldManMac]

Where I lived earlier this year, I backed in, because it was tight and easier to pull out. If one is a good driver, it's just as easy as pulling in, and doesn't require multiple corrections.

With a semi, I rarely get the opportunity to pull through, which takes a tremendous amount of space anyway, so backing in is the only option.

[Kenneth]

It depends, but I prefer backing in.