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Sometimes. I understand if you have a longer vehicle but either way, you still have to put the vehicle in reverse and someone has to wait anyway. If there is a spot available on the other side with nothing dividing the two sides, I will cross over every time but other than that, it does not matter to me.
I do not see much of a difference between the two as I do both. Nothing really changes. They both pose the same danger. Whether you back out or back in, if you're not paying attention or moving slowly, you risk hitting something. I do not have a problem doing both. I do not think about how I am going to park until I get to the spot.
I have to disagree, I think it its safer to back in for a few reasons.
When I find a spot, I already know what is going on around me, such as other cars behind. I know the area that I'm backing into, usually two parked (non moving) cars to the sides and a curb or something of that nature behind me. Less risk of either of those things jumping out at me as I'm backing.
If I pull in forward, then I have a lot of unknowns from 2 or more possible directions that can come and get me. (Them texting teens seem to nail a lot of backing cars in lots nowadays!)
Also, my truck is about 20 feet long. My head sits about 7 feet from the front bumper, or 13 feet from the rear bumper. When pulling out forward, my head will be able to see cross traffic 6 feet sooner then if I were backing out by only putting 7 feet of truck into roadway opposed to 13 feet of truck backing out.
Backing into spaces (if you have both side mirrors), tends to be a lot easier. This allows you to precisely see where your vehicle is going on both sides. I can back into an area with less than an inch of space on each side. (I do this everyday backing into my garage.) Pulling forward, it would be a crap shoot as you cant precisely judge the side clearance.
Them are my reasons why I always back whenever I can!
Unless your the "Dukes of Hazards" where you spin you car 180 degrees and while moving forward and slide into the space, it takes considerably longer then 2 seconds to back in. More like 20 seconds, to stop, look and carefully back in between other cars. I don't have an issue with people backing there car into a space, but it takes a lot longer then 2 seconds.
BWAH!! Awesome visual for me, this Friday morning! Thanks for the laugh... and yes, I have to agree... I'm an awesome parker, as living in Chicago DEMANDS, and still it takes me a little longer than the "Dukes of Hazard" style of parking. *snort~
I always back in. I have a large F250 and it's simply much easier with the mirrors. Plus, I have a backup camera so I know how close I am to the vehicle behind me. Sometimes when I pull in it's easy to not pull in far enough. My truck is already so long the rear hangs out enough as is.
In my dually I tend to back in, for the reasons earlier stated, or use pull through spots way out in the outer areas of a parking lot. In my cars, I tend to go with whatever is mnore convenient at the time. Many parking garages have the spots angled in the direction of traffic so you really can't back into them. And if I want to park my Volt in a charging station spot, it has to be nosed in. At home I park nose in for that reason with the Volt as well. But the dually is usually backed in.
When I was living in Seattle there was a section of Alkai Beach where the parking was marked head-in angle parking only. Again, it was angled in the direction of travel, so backing in was almost impossible.
I started thinking about this in a different way than I usually do today and here's what I came up with.
First, I think there is no question that it's safer to back in and drive forward out. The visibility is better, it's unlikely to have things, vehicles, or people moving in your path when you back in, and so forth.
Nevertheless (and I'm going to ignore the inevitable macho truck head games here), backing in just seems a little harder than pulling in and backing out, and I think I've figured it out. When you're backing out you need to be careful, but you have a fair amount of leeway for where you need to wind up. A couple of feet one way or the other generally isn't going to make a big difference, especially because you can adjust quite a bit when you shift from reverse to drive and start on your way. Backing in, by contrast, you need to be a bit more precise to make sure that you have room to get your doors open, you don't block in the car next to you, etc. Thus, a foot off in either direction could be a real problem. That's probably why it seems to take longer to back in.
I've done back in parking and nose in parking with my Dodge Ram 2500 extended cab long-bed and now with my Honda CRV. It's about the same with each, a little easier with the CRV but I'm not yet quite used to how long it is.
The poster above didn't say two seconds to park, they said two seconds LONGER to park, by the way.
It's not really harder to back in than to nose in, for me. Still need to now where everything is and make sure you've got space to open the doors, you've still got the same amount of space, you still need to be precise to accommodate those problems. How is it more difficult? I'm not being able to picture what you're saying and it's making my brain itch!
I got into the habit of doing this when I used to drive fire trucks. We didn't have a pull thru garage, so we had to back them in. Once you can do that, my Honda Accord seems pretty easy!
I much prefer backing into tight spaces than pulling straight in. I can angle my side mirrors down and see exactly how close my rear bumper is to cars or other objects, as opposed to if I'm pulling straight in it's more of a guessing game.
Anyone who drives a pickup truck will tell you that it is much harder to nose-in to a 90-degree parking spot without having to reverse two or three times to straighten out the line. When backing in a truck, it can be done in one reverse line.
Anyone who drives a pickup truck will tell you that it is much harder to nose-in to a 90-degree parking spot without having to reverse two or three times to straighten out the line. When backing in a truck, it can be done in one reverse line.
Especially the tight parking lots!
And having to back the truck out of those can be tricky to.
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