If you buy a massive 4×4 SUV...

The opposite is held to be true in the US in perpendicular car parks. The potential damage to cars parked alongside from buggies or supermarket trollies pushed to the back of the car to enable loading of the boot at the back of the parking spot is a major consideration.

Perpendicular car parks where backing in is possible also require more space in the aisle for reversing maneuvers, so nobody is coming out ahead, space wise.

I always reverse in spaces but my favourite thing to do is let DH run in the supermarket while I sit and watch everyone park 😂the amount of people who can't park even in tiny cars is enough entertainment for me instead of going shopping

Cross posted wrt the many benefits of angled parking spaces.

Each municipality sets its own rules about backing into spaces. Stores with carparks can also set their own rules. Before the advent of rearview cameras in cars, the local ground level municipal carparks and carparks in big box stores nearby all had signs forbidding backing into parking spots. You could get ticketed in the municipal carparks, and fines were steep. That rule no longer applies because so many cars now have cameras that a nine year old child could probably park a car today. The backing in rules only applied in perpendicular car parks - its impossible and very inadvisable to try backing into an angled spot.

Not all of the US has lots of space - the urban east coast is very densely populated and landlocked. I live in a landlocked suburb in the midwest where the only option for building is up, or demolition and repurposing of existing sites.

But even in rural areas, angled parking is preferable because many people have trucks as their primary vehicle (Ford F150 style).

Back in the day Rolls Royce took back a motor from a farmer who was using it that way for breach of branding

Space standards are still 2.4m wide for parking.
The problem is not necessarily that cars can’t fit in but that people are much larger now so many will park not central in order to give themselves room to get out.
Ive noticed if someone is badly parked they’ve usually given more room on the drivers side.

I complain, they're way too long and also they poke out of side roads because the driver cant see without putting the car right out into the road

I would ask them not to park outside school while dropping off on the zigzag lines. Knobhead.

IMHO most people in the UK park like shit. I am disabled but badgeless and need a decent space when getting out, so when I park I park to one side, ensuring that the driver (like myself) next to me can get in and out. If that means me going in front first rather than my preferred reverse, then so be it. All it takes is a little thought. If I can find an end space, then great, but if not, then it's one-sided for me. I believe in some countries that's how everyone parks, and it works for me, apart from the inevitable occasional twat.

It kinds of puts our efforts to lower our emissions into perspective.

• I live in the US, where car parks are properly designed (wider spaces, more often than not angled).*

Angled spots are much safer because they're easier to get into and out of. That's why they're the norm in the US, where a lot of design of spaces used by the public is based on the cost of insurance.

They're easier to back out of because they give you a better view of traffic as you're backing out. They're easier to get into because you don't have to make a wide turn to line up your vehicle, and your risk of hitting a vehicle parked alongside as you drive in is also greatly reduced. They discourage backing in (which comes with the risk of hitting other parked cars depending on camera availability in the car). They reduce the turning distance needed in a car park - cars need more space to enter and back out and do the necessary turns in a perpendicular car park. They cut down on delays to other traffic in the carpark (and exhaust emissions) - there's less sitting there watching someone back out and then do multiple maneuvers trying to get themselves pointed in the right direction to drive away.

They’re bad ass? The vantage point is good and high? They’re loud and chuntery? They tow? They fit lots? I can fit a sheep in it? They bounce nicely across fields? You can drive through closed gates?

Not necessaily. There's lots of double-sided car-backing-onto-car rows of bays. This single row is closest to the supermarket (apart from the disabled/family bays) and they clearly couldn't fit another double sided bay in. For people who aren't ready/able to get a disabled sticker, and can't load their cars from the side, they'd work well. Drive in forwards, drive out the other side. Works well.

You probably shouldn’t write stuff like this online. 😂

The issue is large 4x4s in overcrowded metropolitan areas, especially in the South of England, not 4x4s per se.

If you are regularly driving through deep surface water or engaging your diff lock to get out of your drive when it is icy, they are entirely appropriate.

Agree!

Also the majority of these people don’t actually own the car because they cannot afford it! 😂

Love this 👆

Yes, quite. My RR has umpty hundred cameras and sensors, and it can basically park itself of required. While manoeuvring it constantly scans dozens of times a second before it will move an inch.

Far, far safer than Maureen parking her Peugeot 206.

@mathanxiety

"I live in the US, where car parks are properly designed (wider spaces, more often than not angled)."

That's interesting. (Obvs you lot have more space generally than we do. 😀)

1. What are the rules/recommendations of your Highway Code equivalent about reversing into parking spaces?
2. Why are your spaces often angled? Is there a provable/perceived benefit?

Don’t think my two dogs would fit in a mini! Moving to a rural area, scouting it out this weekend, every driveway is covered with 4x4s, even driving in the streaming rain which has caused stupid amounts of red clay mud to slide into the lanes, is tricky. I dread to think how you’re expected to drive round these areas in a non 4x4. We had a short walk today up Garway Hill, the last few hundred yards of the ‘road’ is a mud track. A non 4x4 wouldn’t have made it up (no parking til the top and two houses en route , so leaving the car would have been extremely inconvenient for the owners)

That cuts down avaiable parking spaces
2 to 1 v
1 to 1

I must admit, this baffles me too. Large, luxe 4x4s usually come with myriad parking sensors, cameras etc and have great visibility due to higher driving position. It’s one of the reasons I have one (along with needing four wheel drive due to floods, farmers leaving god-knows-what on the road and other rural driving nightmares). There’s no excuse.

Agree.

Well said.