When I was a kid, I was a huge fan of Batman and Emergency, two television shows that shared something in common. No, not real people acting as heroes, but real people acting as heroes who parked their vehicles so that they wouldn’t have to put them in reverse when they were summoned to save the day. The Emergency fire truck, of course, pulled in backwards after they had saved the day and had a little time to park the truck that way. The Bat Mobile, however, turned around with the aid of a giant turntable that I assumed Batman and Robin constructed themselves.
I dug this backward parking. I dug the car facing towards the impending crisis. The door (or door covered in foliage and bramble) would fly open, the vehicle would fly forward, unencumbered by a two- or three-point turned.
I was 12.
Now, it seems, there are others who wish to save the day or thwart crime or rescue kittens from trees and so they park their vehicles backwards. The problem is, none of these vehicles is a Bat Mobile or a fire truck or even a security golf cart. They are SUVs and big ass trucks and sports cars. They are, in my opinion, mere mortals who aspire to be something greater and so park like greater souls.
The problem is, they’re coming off like morons.
Actually, here’s the problem: Let’s say it takes, say, four units of time to pull into and out of a parking space. When you pull into a parking space, it should take roughly two units of time to get there. When you leave, barring any traffic behind you, another two units of time to get out. But when you pull into a parking space backwards, it takes three units of time to pull in and then two units of time to pull out, thereby exceeding your allotted time by one unit.
And for what? So that you can come screaming out of your parking space and whoop up on the Joker? No. Just so you can show off the mad grill of your late model environmental hazard.
Stop it, people. Just stop it. Unless there is a door or some other portal which you must back up to in order to unload parcels or other sundry objects through said portal, there is absolutely no reason to pull into a parking space backwards. None. Matters are made worse when the parking spaces are at a slight angle and not perpendicular to the flow of traffic.
It’s little things like this that ruin our culture. Not directly and I only have a vague idea of how it would ruin our culture indirectly, but it’s there. You’re ruining things.
Thank you.