Back-In Parking

[Don]

Well, if you're able to park, it's faster.

My next door neighbor's husband demands his wife back the car into the carport, just as he does. Watching her try to get it centered in the space every day is quite entertaining. Forward and back, usually 3 or 4 times and eventually she gets it *close* to the way he likes it. I'm left wondering how much all that forward and reverse shifting is shortening the life of the car. On the other hand, if they parked the regular way (front end in first) they have a HUGE area to back up into so as to turn around and leave the drive front end first

Backing into a confined space so you don't have to back out into an unconfined space will never make a lick of sense to me

Don

[JoeS]

My next door neighbor's husband demands his wife back the car into the carport, just as he does. Watching her try to get it centered in the space every day is quite entertaining. Forward and back, usually 3 or 4 times and eventually she gets it *close* to the way he likes it.

I'm always dumbfounded that, when people need to do something, they don't practice until they get it 'right'. When we first got our cruising catamaran, both my wife and I spent a few days practicing docking until we both could do it with aplomb. The level of driving skill by the average driver in this country is abysmal and, add to that texting or jabbering on the phone (irrespective of whether it's handsfree or not), makes backing up into that environment downright dangerous (staying on-topic ). Can't wait for self-driving cars.

... Backing into a confined space so you don't have to back out into an unconfined space will never make a lick of sense to me

Replace the word "unconfined" with "uncontrolled" perhaps is a better focus. For me, when I visit suburbia, it's kids playing in driveways that causes me worry. Don, one of the few things we continue to agree to disagree on.

[wmcbrine]

Every Leaf owner I know has to drag at least a portion of their cable on the ground in order to plug in their car, and they also have a trip hazard as they need to get by the front of their car and step over the cord after they've closed the garage door.

Well, that just seems like bad planning. If they're installing the EVSE themselves, they ought to be able to find a logical place for it, and I assume they already knew where the car's charge port is.

Now, in my case, I actually have my new EVSE towards the front of the garage, on the wrong side of the i-MiEV. In that position, it would work a lot better for a Leaf, or if I backed in (which I've done a few times, but it's a pain). But I was taking advantage of some existing wiring, and rather than redo that, I just got a longer cable for the J1772.

[Don]

In our case, we back out of the garage about 50 feet where we can turn around and leave the driveway front first. If we were to back in, we'd have to make the turn around the same 50 feet from the garage door and back up the 50 feet into the garage bay. With an 8 foot wide door, there's about 6 inches or so of clearance on the mirrors on either side. I've been driving for more than 50 years and consider myself a pretty accomplished driver, but backing the 50 feet twice a day for 3 years, I'm 90% sure I'd be needing a new mirror by now - For the wife . . . . we'd have needed a new mirror the first month

Pulling in nose first, the car is already aligned very straight in the garage stall and backing out is a simple matter - You just don't turn the steering wheel at all . . . . it went in straight and it comes back out straight. You could back it out at 25 miles an hour and never clip a mirror. Once you clear the door, the driveway is 20 feet wide. Backing onto a 20 foot wide paved surface is much, much easier than backing a 7 foot wide car into an 8 foot wide door

As I said previously, "Backing into a confined space so you don't have to back out into an unconfined space will never make a lick of sense to me" - It's cheaper too . . . . no need to buy the occasional mirror

The other really good feature about backing out vs backing in - You can walk around the back of the car before you get in to leave the space to assure there's nothing behind you before you begin the backing operation.

When I was in the USAF, we always had to use a 'backing spotter' (the front seat passenger who would get out and stand behind where the driver could see them in the mirror.) No passengers? We had to use a back-up cone. Stop the truck, place the cone where you wanted the drivers side rear bumper to be and then get back in and back up to the cone. Something like 75% of all our accidents happened while backing. It got so bad that ANY backing accident of any kind was an automatic Article 15 or worse - Not good if you were a career military person hoping to retire after 20 years. Back-in parking was a definite no-no

Don

[JoeS]

Couldn't resist posting this here. See why the i-MiEV is a superior urban vehicle:

http://www.teslarati.com/valet-attempts ... -dash-cam/

I don't think that any of us would have had a problem backing our i-MiEV into that parking place in one shot.

Back on-topic, it looks as though valet parking culture is to back into parking spots.

[jsantala]

Model S is friggin' huge car at least by European standards - 5m long, 2m wide. Euro i-MiEV is 3,4m by 1,5m. You could almost fit two i-MiEVs into the same square meters as a Model S.

[Don]

Back on-topic, it looks as though valet parking culture is to back into parking spots.

. . . . and evidently, they're no better at it than most of us, back-camera and all

I wouldn't let any valet touch my car if I was driving a 15 year old Toyota Corolla, much less a new Tesla!

[PV1]

I'll park my own car, thank you. Got to be easy on the throttle. Probably did $1,000 in damage easy. I was waiting to watch the mirror snap off.

Just for comparison:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/novfen22slbqw ... 9.jpg?dl=0

[JoeS]

Greetings from New Caledonia! Even in the South Pacific, people know how to park properly. Unfortunately, have not seen a single EV

[JoeS]

Continuing to add fuel to the fire, here's another photo of back-in parking in New Caledonia, with the beautiful South Pacific (Coral Sea) water in the background:



Here's a current photo from Cleveland QLD which is where I was first exposed to back-in parking over 10 years ago - note that in Australia they drive on the left side of the road.



Raised the topic with a old sailing/engineer Aussie friend who now lives in that community and it was incredible how vehement a proponent he is of this technique. We both bemoaned the incompetence of drivers who are incapable of properly performing this simple maneuver.