I once heard “to keep your tailgate from being stolen” but that seems like it’d be a rare case.
As everyone else has said, mostly convenience. Easier parking, quicker leaving, generally safer. If I’m early to work I’ll “drive-through” an empty spot to park with the nose outwards. The rearview mirrors make it very easy to keep track of where your car is going.
Occasionally I’ve also managed to do some stupidly tight parking jobs where I literally had to climb out of the trunk :)
fwiw, I’ve parked trailers for a living for 10+years–I do it out of habit and a work ethic of ‘put the work in on the front end so I can backslide on the tail end’ Tho I can see a practicality/safer attempt to having a better view upon departing the parked position. Obviously if you’d like to get into the geometry of it, backing in gives you a much wider range of flexibility to work with in the positioning phases of the maneuver.
Not sure if it’s true. but I was also told that changing gears on a transmission that’s been running for a bit is easier on the mechanical parts/bits involved (as opposed to swapping gears on a cold startup)
tldr because there’s tons of good reasons to do so, and very nearly 0 good reasons not to do so. Leave the rest to the mathematicians and statisticians
My mom does this every time she parks, even in our driveway. She’s always said it’s so if her car stalls, it’s easier to get it jumped or towed out of the spot.
Our driveway is bizarre.
Yeah, it fits 2 cars, but not side-by-side. So one person backs into park, then gets parked in by the other car.
Generally not a big deal because I drive more than my wife does.
The shape of the driveway makes it easier for that car to back in than back out.
Rear visibility in my car is kind of trash so it’s safer if I back into the spot so that I can better see what’s going on when I’m leaving
My charging port is in back.
Unless I am going to be putting stuff into the trunk, backing in is better, it’s more dangerous to back the car out of the space than into it.
Backing in is the correct way to parallel park too.
Backing in is the correct way to parallel park too.
That’s because the rear axle is immovable.
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Because I have worse visibility backing than going forward. There’s a smaller chance that there’s a kid suddenly walking into my parking spot than moving behind my car when exiting my parking space
I think driving forward is easier, so on days that I’m feeling good I back in, that way in the morning I have a little something to be happy about.
I drive a large pickup truck for work. With the backup camera, it is WAY WAY WAY easier to back into a tight spot than to pull head in. I pretty much always back the truck in.
You can fit in more easily. Having the steering axle in the back relative to the direction of movement allows you to drive tighter curves (like a forklift).
Oh yes! This is my reason too. With a back up camera makes it easier
Because they’re cops.
When you are approaching a parking spot you’re already looking everywhere and can find obstacles as you back in. If you drive into a parking spot backing out may have issues because you may not have seen obstacles that would be in the way. We are not always as observant approaching our vehicle as we are when we have already been driving it. Plus, it’s a whole lot easier to get back out of the parking spot if you can just drive away.
Simply having to sit and watch as morons poorly attempt to back in suggests they don’t have a good grasp of their surroundings.
I don’t have a big, stupid, oversized, vehicle with blind spots. I can park normally.
But I do have a big, stupid, oversized vehicle with blind spots and I can’t park normally!
I also had a Mini Cooper that I would back into parking spots for the reasons outlined in many other comments here… because “normal” isn’t always better.
