Are you a fronter or a backer? Do you pull into a parking space frontwards or do you back in? If I were to drive by your home and look in your driveway, would I be greeted by your car’s headlights or taillights?
I went down to my local H-E-B and Walmart stores to see what percentage of people are fronters and what percentage are backers. Using the new math I’ve learned by helping my daughter with their homework, I came up with some ridiculous ratios, and so I had to resort to the old math where my conclusions are reached by eyeballing and guesstimating. Seems to me that about 30% of people back into parking spaces. If you restrict the survey pool to just pickup trucks, it is closer to 50/50.
I asked a few backers why they preferred that method of parking. A small woman driving an extended cab pickup said: “It’s safer. I get the lay of the land when I come into the parking lot and pick an area where there’s nobody walking and nobody driving. I back right in. When I want to leave, I can also see the cross traffic and pedestrians more clearly. It’s safer – safer for me, safer for everybody.”
She also said that with a longer pickup truck she can back in in one try, whereas if she heads in she has to make several adjustments to straighten up and get within the lines.
» STORIES FROM TEXAS: More from W.F. Strong
I asked a big bearded man who was driving an oilfield services pickup why he backed in, and he said, “Who wants to know?” He regarded me with suspicion, as if I had OSHA on my shirt. I said, “I’m a backer myself, and I’m just curious as to why other people choose to back into spaces?”
He said: “I don’t have time for this. I gotta go. But there’s your answer. I’m in the ‘gotta go’ business. It’s faster.”
He shut the door and put the already-running diesel engine in gear and sped away.
Reminded me of my brother, Redneck Dave, who was a lifelong backer. Every night he’d not only back his truck into his driveway but he’d make sure to top off the gas, too. He’d say, “I might have to be 300 miles from here by mornin’. Don’t want to have to stop for anything.”
I said, “Sounds a bit paranoid.”
He said: “Nope. If you wait till you’re paranoid, it’s too late.”
» GET MORE NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE: Sign up for Texas Standard’s weekly newsletters
Talked to a guy driving a plumber’s truck, and he said: “I back in ’cause I carry tools and parts in the bed of my truck. Can’t see worth a damn past all that when I have to back into people and traffic.” He added, “But if you can find a space you can pull through, that’s the holy grail right there.”
A lady in a BMW who backed in when she could have pulled in frontwards in less time, it seemed to me, said she liked using the driving assist that practically does it for you.
The technology is coming to all vehicles in the near future. It saddens me that kids today will never know the joy of mastering the intuitive physics required to parallel park on the first try.
I know some people are annoyed at us backers, thinking we are being obnoxious contrarians, but for most of us, it comes down to feeling that it is safer, more efficient and faster. The bigger the pickup, the greater the truths in all of these.
