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There's a chance I may hate you. I park in a standard parking garage, with forward angle parking and one way traffic flow. I occasionally encounter vehicles r
by saalweachter 7y ago
There's a chance I may hate you.
I park in a standard parking garage, with forward angle parking and one way traffic flow. I occasionally encounter vehicles reverse parked, which confuses me, but whatever, but then also encounter vehicles driving backwards (well, forward facing, going against the posted signage) through the parking garage. This is always a big headache, because again, this is a one way parking garage, and for some reason THEY never seem to think they should back up or get out of the way of the person driving the correct way through the garage, so I always have to do some extra maneuvering and wait for them to pass, and I usually only have a small margin before the train arrives, and--
Assuming they are not simply idiots who can't follow the signs, my next assumption would be that these are the people who are reverse-parking, looking for a spot to back into.
Anyway, if you have difficulty making the turning radius to pull straight into a forward angle parking spot, there is a very simple trick: make a three point turn, attempting to pull into the spot to the right of the empty spot, then when you are almost to the bumper of the parked car, back up and straighten out, which puts you at the perfect angle to drive straight into the angled spot now in front of you.
It beats the pants out of getting halfway into the spot before realizing you're about to hit the car on one side or the other and trying to straighten out after the fact.
- Cougher 7y agoI nearly always reverse into parking spots. Reversing into a spot is easier because of where the turning is occuring. I don't need to pull in, reverse, and pull in again. I also have a narrower window of view that I have to look backwards at with two stationary cars instead of moving cars. Conversely, when I pull straight out, it's much easier to scan the entire field for moving cars and pedestrians. If you concerned that I'm backing toward you when I'm pulling in, I'd be doing the same thing when I'm pulling out.
- saalweachter 7y agoNote that my concern isn't really about the technical superiority of forward or reverse angle parking, or whether people choose to park forward or reverse in perpendicular parking. It bothers me when people decide to ignore the marked direction of traffic flow in a garage or parking structure to facilitate their preferred parking style; if there were a reverse-angle parking garage I used where people went backwards through but to forward park I'd be just as annoyed.
- mourner 7y agoIt's easy enough if you have enough space, but in this case the road is so narrow that I can't move forward much in the second maneuver. I'm sure I'll figure out the right angles with practice eventually, the reverse turning movement just feels very counter-intuitive when starting out (I just got my driver's license) — at least I can understand it better now.
- gowld 7y agoPresuming tom_ isn't a criminal, I'd hazard that the reason tom_ likes reverse-parking and thinks forward barking is hard, isn't because tom_ drives the wrong way down one way streets, but because tom_ has trouble parking without the extra lane worth of turning radius.
- fyfy18 7y agoI find reverse parking easier to reason about spatially. Ok I do have a backup camera, but even without that you can roughly see where the back of the car is in the mirrors. With the front of the car I have absolutely no idea at what point I should stop (meaning the bottom of my front bumper is rather scratched).
- sjwright 7y agoSpeaking for myself, I prefer reverse parking because it allows you to deal with the slower reversing manoeuvre when you’ve already got full monopolisation of the lane. Plus it makes exiting safer, easier and much less prone to assholery.