There’s a lot of talk these days about threats to society — AI, Grand Theft Auto VI, birds that may or may not be government drones — but I’d like to nominate a new one: people who back into parking spaces. You know them. You see them. You feel them holding up traffic while they awkwardly sashay their cars backwards into a spot that could have just been pulled into like a normal, emotionally balanced adult.
Let’s be clear: backing into a parking spot is not just a driving choice. It’s a personality. They are not parking for convenience, they’re performing.
“Oh, I might need to leave in a hurry,” they claim, as if they’re Jason Bourne and not just picking up paper towels and Diet Dr Pepper from Walgreens. The only emergency they’re likely to experience is forgetting their reusable bags.
Backing in is not for efficiency. It’s for attention. It’s a car-based humblebrag. It says, “I value my future self more than your current convenience.” These people walk into Whole Foods like they just disarmed a bomb. They didn’t. They just inconvenienced three cars and a grandma in a Camry trying to mind her business.
I tweeted this sentiment out recently and it went (kinda) viral.
And while I’ve been on the internet for a long time, few things I’ve written have provoked such intense responses as making fun of people who back into parking spots.
Some agreed with me.
Others took it personally.
Someone even pointed me to an “AARP Livability Fact Sheet” which claimed that “head-out angled parking is the safest and easiest method since drivers have stopped traffic before backing in and can see oncoming traffic when pulling out.”
Fine, but even according to the AARP, those people have already “stopped traffic before backing in.”
I stand by my tweet. Backing in is supposed to save time when you leave, but let’s be real — no one is timing you. There’s no stopwatch at the grocery store. You’re not in NASCAR, you’re in a Ford Escape with a kid’s soccer magnet on the back.
And don’t get me started on the weird dominance ritual of it. The three-point turn. The confident hand over the passenger seat. The smug glance in the mirror like, “Yeah. I do yoga and read David Foster Wallace.” Dude, you just reversed into a Chili’s parking lot. You’re not David Foster Wallace. You’re a mildly annoying traffic cone in human form.
And I get it — some workplaces encourage it, like fire stations or power plants. That’s fine. If your job involves rushing into burning buildings, back in all day. But Steve from accounting does not need to tactically position his Toyota Highlander for rapid extraction from Panda Express. You’re not storming the embassy, Steve. You’re getting orange chicken and maybe some crab rangoon if you’re feeling spicy.
In conclusion, if you back into parking spots, I don’t think you’re a sociopath. I think you’re a very specific kind of person: the kind who claps when the plane lands, owns a tactical flashlight “just in case,” and has strong opinions about where the thermostat should be set in public buildings. You’re not dangerous — you’re just exhausting.
