Do You Back into a Parking Spot or Back Out?

> And safer, as Mr. Van Tassel, the AAA instructor, said. He cited a 2020 study from the journal Transportation Research that found, among other things, that the pull-in, back-out maneuver had a higher crash risk. Since pedestrians are most likely to be found walking in the major lanes, not in a parking space, it’s safer to back into the area with fewer people.

This. For me, backing in is not about convenience or personal safety, but vehicular safety. Even with backup cameras, you're more aware of things in front of the car than behind it.

In the military, you are taught to always park such that the vehicle (even a tank or a fixed-wing aircraft) can be immediately started and moved forward. This ensures that the vehicle can get out of the immediate area and up to speed as quickly as possible.

Backing out always confers a significant delay, and I would also argue that many people are exceedingly hesitant when backing out because they have almost no mental model about the physical extent of the vehicle.

I mean, the number of times I have seen people back out in a mincing, hesitant, stop-and-go fashion, yet leave nearly a full car length between their rear bumper and any obstacle behind them, is distressingly close to 100%.

Meanwhile, I can get into a totally strange vehicle and - provided I first did a walk-around to visualize it - can back up to within 15-30cm of any obstacle without tapping it. It all comes down to holding and maintaining a visual model of the vehicle in your mind, so you can better estimate how close you really are to anything behind you.

It is fascinating and so revealing about the American psyche that the majority of those questioned in this article speak of pulling in and backing out as a way to leave quickly in the case of violence, rather than for the obvious safety benefit of not having to back out blindly into pedestrian and vehicular traffic.

I first noticed my next-door neighbor doing this in his driveway. I figured it was he was a retired fireman.

I started backing in because it was recommended in a defensive driving class I took in 2010 or so.