"Peter Hill" nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:361sc4l5ls3jbefv4p5ih1a6aimlosffpf@4ax.com...

The debate about driving forwards into a parking space or driveway versus
reversing into it is one that divides the world! The IAM prefer reversing
into spaces, but I could make a good case for driving forwards:

- It is easier to drive forwards (car in normal mode with steering wheels at
front of direction of travel, and with good visibility) when doing the
high-precision part of the manoeuvre which requires you to be positioned
accurately side-to-side and not to hit the car/wall ahead of you, and to
leave the reversing for when you've got bags of space (the lane between the
car-parking spaces)

- When reversing into a narrow space, you have to swing the rear end (the
front of the car) a long way to make small adjustments to the widthways
position of the car, whereas you only need to make a small adjustment to the
steering to make such corrections if you drive in forwards. If only cars had
four-wheel steering (with the rear wheels doing the role of the front wheels
when you reverse) this would give you the best of both worlds ;-)

- reversing to park usually takes longer than driving in forwards, and I'm
usually in more of a hurry to be somewhere on foot when I arrive at a
car-park than I am when I set off afterwards

Yes, there are cases when it is safer to reverse into a driveway than to
reverse out onto a busy road, but the safest way of all is to have a
turnaround space on your drive so you can both drive in at the end of your
journey *and* drive out at the start of the following day, having done a
reverse turn in the safety of your own drive. Not everyone has the luxury of
such a turning space ;-)