Did I have enough space to reverse

As soon as I saw your pic I thought it looked extraordinarily like the car park at my local hospital! Doesn't begin with a W by any chance does it?

That looks like a manoeuvre that an autonomous car was made for 😎

You don't need as much swing to get out. Bonnet is longer than the boot, you can lock the turn faster and don't have to worry about the bonnet hitting the car next you.

Honestly @YourJadeSquid even if the van took up half the lane opposite I'm confident I'd have been able to reverse my estate car out of any of those spaces. And I only have wing mirrors, none of these fancy modern bleepy sensor things 😂

Judging by some of your replies I'm guessing you're a very inexperienced driver with little knowledge of correct driving procedures. For instance what on earth do you mean by saying you put your "reversing hazards" on?

It's not to do with shape of the car. Unless you're driving a 4 wheel drive car, passenger vehicles are front-wheel drive. That means the direction the car moves in is controlled by the position of the front of the car.

For front-wheel drive cars, when you drive into a space and reverse out, the position of the front of the car is limited by the vehicles parked either side. When you reverse into a space, the front of the car generally has more available space on the road. Just means it's usually easier to maneuver a car into a space backwards than it is to reverse it out of the same space.

Wowsers. Your posts are wild. Where did I say, never learn to reverse park, never reverse park… your posts an example of making a drama out of very little/nothing. You seem determined to have an argument.

If there's a prospect that reversing out might be difficult you'd be better reversing in.

@YourJadeSquid- I also think you need to get in the habit of reverse parking, because you need less space to reverse in than out. This means if it’s not possible to reverse in to a space (because other drivers aren’t waiting for you or it’s too tight a space), then it would be even harder to get out of the space. You don’t have to get into the parking space if there’s other options, but once you’ve got into the space you do need to be able to get out of it again!

Get in the habit, if you can’t reverse in (space shape, traffic etc) you can’t reverse out. On the way into a space you can give up and find a different space, on the way out, you are stuck with the poor space choice.

Easier to get out of course

Because the front wheels steer the car pivots around the rear wheels. This means is much harder to reverse out of a space as to turn you need the front to swing out.

reversing in means you can drive out. It’s much easier, and safer as you can see better

No, but being unable to reverse a car into a parking space does mean you can't drive your car properly. Of course it's sometimes a necessity to drive in, depending on the circumstances, but that's not the same thing. Surely you see that having to do it because you just can't reverse your car into a space calls the ability of that driver into question.

The wheels that turn are at the front of your car so the front of your car turns first. It's much easier to get out going forwards and turning that reversing and turning when the front of your car turns towards the cars you're parked by whilst you reverse.

Having said that I have a huge car and always pull in forwards! That's a 2 way road, I have parked forwards in way smaller roads and got out. My car has the turning circle of a cargo ship. I think there's plenty of room.

If you're not confident reversing out there then you should reverse park as it will be easier to turn the front of your car first.

Reversing is frightening lol
This is a wind up!

Science. The turning wheels are at the front so you turn the wheel earlier when driving out forwards than when you drove out backwards.

Unless you were driving a Type 2 Challenger Tank, you had more than enough space to reverse out of that space.

You could have got a bus out of there. Plenty of space, if you were struggling, perhaps you need a driver refresher course

For fuck's sake read the thread, or at least the OP's many posts 🙄

Did you reverse into your parking space?
If not, that's your mistake right there.

It's like 1.5car lengths, you could easily reverse. Can you do a 3 point turn in the road?

Did you reverse onto the path once he'd gone?

No it is not but it’s recommended by motoring groups. And as PPs have said, it is safer reversing in for a variety of reasons.

Cars in the UK are mainly front wheel drive so the space needed to clear the adjacent cars if reversing out of a space is greater.

There is also no legal right of way in a car park so if you hit someone or something, it could end up causing huge drama WRT who is at fault.

As to your original question @YourJadeSquid , there was room to reverse out. That and your reluctance to accept what nearly everyone on the thread, and motoring agencies say, ie that reverse parking is safer, YABVU in complaining about this.

😂 there you have the answer to your question if you don’t understand this.

Exactly an old woman was killed recently near us by someone reversing out of a parking space

Come on, if you can get a passenger out of a car then you can take most fold up pushchairs past. Someone upthread has already explained the difficulty of reversing out of a car parking space and not being able to see out of the mirrors for longer. Even if you hit someone slowly, you still hit them. @SerendipityJane has given the numbers of the Highway Code rules

I couldn’t but I’m really really shit at manoeuvring. It’s embarrassing really (me not you)

Everyone should be able to manoeuvre their car just as well in reverse as going forward. Living in Devon, the amount of tourists we have who freeze when they meet someone on our country lanes and can’t reverse to a passing place. We’ve had to start putting up signs telling non-reversers to not enter the lane.

There was plenty of room to reverse and as others stated you should reverse into parking spots whenever possible as it’s much safer.

if you haven’t got adequate reversing skills you shouldn’t be driving as you’re not safe. Please don’t come to Devon.