What's the Best Way To Park?

Do people who back their cars into parking spaces slow down the flow? Or are they the smartest in the lot?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works, Hey, brain
Stuff Christian Sager here. Whether it's cooking an egg, skinning
a cat, or building an underground bunker to prepare for
end times, there is usually more than one way to
do most things. When it comes to driving a car.
For example, motorists tend to have some wildly varying ideas

(00:23):
about how to best get from point A to point B.
That's not to mention timeless driving debates over how to
occupy the far left lane on a highway, when to
turn on your lights, or if you should pull over
for a funeral procession. Then there's the question of what
to do when you want to stop driving and leave

(00:44):
your car somewhere. Many motorists are united in their strict
aversion to parallel parking, but how to navigate other spots
is still a source of some debate. Is it better
to turn headfirst into a parking space or to take
the time to park backed in facing out in what
some refer to as battle parking. Buckle up for the answer.

(01:08):
For both safety and efficiency purposes, the experts say it
is usually best to back into a parking space. That's
because having a wide field of vision is more important
when you're pulling out of a parking space than it
is when you're pulling in. Katherine Peterman, an architect who
has helped design parking lots across the United States, told

(01:29):
us that when you back in, it's into a defined
space where people aren't likely to be, but when you
pull out of a parking space, you're pulling into traffic
and possibly into pedestrians. Sure, technological advances like rear side
cameras and those sensors that make beeping noises when you
get too close to a person or another car, they

(01:50):
can help make backing out easier, but the effect those
cameras have had on reducing accidents has been gradual at best.
Peterman and Vanessa so Lisby, a spokesperson for the International
Parking Institute, say that it's because backing out is still
not as easy as driving out head first, and both

(02:10):
acknowledge that backing into a parking space is often easier
said than done. New or inexperienced drivers may feel uncomfortable
trying to negotiate a prime space backwards. The rest of
us may simply feel pressure or you know, hear the
shrieking horns from traffic as it piles up during the process,

(02:31):
as backing in can take a few more seconds than
pulling in front fender first. That's why Peterman recommends that
drivers look for spots where the space in front of
you is also open, so you can pull through. But
convincing folks to back that thing up is going to
take some time. That's especially true as smartphones, smart dashboards,

(02:51):
and other technological advances within cars compete for drivers time
and attention, and while the experts may say it's the
way to go, not everyone is so quick to adopt
the practice. Today's episode was written by Chris Opfer, produced

(03:12):
by Tristan McNeil, and For more on this and other topics,
please visit us at how stuff works dot com.