My husband has been lecturing me on the virtues of backing cars into the driveway for years. It's safer, it's easier to drive away, yada, yada, yada. I guess I've always agreed that it's a good idea, but not worth my time or energy.
Last week, I witnessed a near miss that scared me into having a change of heart. It all happened in a matter of seconds. I had parked across the street from my house to get the mail. I got out of my car and noticed my neighbor backing out of his driveway. Normally this wouldn't cause any alarm, but I also happened to notice that three children were approaching his car. Because of a hedge on my neighbor's yard, neither the kids, nor the driver saw each other. The kids were talking and laughing while walking home from school, completely oblivious to the car that was about to him them. The driver was minding his own business, backing out of his driveway, completely oblivious to the children that would appear behind his car in mere seconds. It wasn't until I screamed at the kids to stop, that they stopped in their tracks and noticed that they were about a foot away from being hit by an approaching car. The incident nearly gave me a heart attack.
Since that day, I have backed my car into the driveway every time I have come home. I have been convinced that it's just much safer. I'm not going to lie, it is more of a pain than simply pulling in and parking, but I'm getting used to it and getting better at it.
I also must add that I have noticed that my neighbor has also been backing his car in since that day.
(This isn't my car or my house, but this guy also thinks backing his car in is pretty awesome).
I started backing into my driveway several years ago because a fence blocked my vision of the road. It does seem to take more time. But it doesn't really. It just changes WHEN you're going to back up (coming vs. going). And you get a lot better at it. I don't back in anymore because now I park in my garage and don't want exhaust in the house. BUT I do back in at work. It's easy and leaving is so much quicker when all I have to do is pull forward.
ReplyDeleteA funny story: several years ago I was teaching a serviceman how to drive. Near the end of the lesson, we went to the Naval base to drop him off. We had a few minutes and it seemed like a great time to do a quick backing into a parking space run through. I prepped him for the maneuver, we passed the space we wanted and then put the car into reverse. As I was guiding him, he wasn't sure of how to turn the wheel and hesitated then a guy driving up pulled right into our space. Okay. We found a new space. And...I kid you not. The same thing happened. It was about that point that we decided we'd work on backing in at another time in a less popular parking lot.
ReplyDeleteNice save Katie, Nice Save!!
ReplyDeleteWhen parking at stores I always find a pull thru spot so I don't have to back up every since a news story of a dad who lost his grip of his little ones hand and was tragically hit by someone backing out of a spot who didn't see the short little guy. SUV's are pretty dangerous like that. Even my husband now does it and James on occassion.
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