How do you park your car in your country?

I recently was hired to teach an American family moving here from Texas. They are still in Texas so we are doing it online, which is making scheduling a little strange, but the job pays well so I'm up for it. It's basically a cultural training class. More often I teach these to Japanese folks moving to America for a year or two (it's fairly common for companies here to send people overseas for a few years, whether they want to go or not), but occasionally I get these requests for foreigners moving to Japan.

Just another of the kinds of classes I teach at my school, I suppose, @deraaa.

Anyway, since it is just one family and not a large class, I am taking more of a Q&A approach, letting their curiosity and interests guide what we cover, or at least the order of which we cover things.

One thing that the husband asked me during our last class might be of interest to many of you on Hive. He asked me "Is it true that the Japanese always back-into parking spots?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

^{Backing in for a late night snack at a convenience store - By David Magalhães}

Hmm...why? Kind of a dumb question. I mean, why not, right? But also I do get his curiosity. Because in America backing-in is not the normal way to do it. There are some folks in the States who enjoy backing into parking spots, but these people are definitely the exception. The vast majority always drives into parking spots nose first.

I'd guess Americans do it this way just because it's easier. Not only is driving in nose-first easier, but backing out is much easier than backing in because precision is not as important. Sad to say, I think technical driving skills of Americans are not very high. Most of us "learn" how to drive in high school drivers ed class, which usually is run by an uninterested gym teacher who mostly just makes us watch videos and might only take us out for actual driving once or twice in the entire class. Then most States (maybe all?) exempt us from having to take the drivers test if we took drivers ed class. The end result is a very large percentage of America drivers don't actually have much skill at driving, at least not when they start, and most probably never really gain that skill. One of those things that I imagine many high school drivers ed classes skip over is backing up (parallel parking is another I think gets skipped over). A surprisingly amount of people have no idea how to back up.

Contrast this to Japan where if you want to get a drivers license you have to go to a very expensive driving school which teaches more technical skills than most Americans are even aware of, then you have a difficult driving test which tests far more things than the American test (which most Americans never take anyway). Due to this, I think the Japanese are usually much more able to back a car in than Americans.

^{Tight Spot - By dmeurer}

[Note, again, I am speaking in generalities. As I mentioned above, I know there is a minority of Americans who love to back in to spaces and as a result of all the practice doing it, are quite good at it. So please no comments below from angry people telling me you know how to back up. I know you exist, but face it, you are in the minority.]

^{Nice car - By vaea Garrido}

The advantages of backing in are obvious: leaving will be much easier. Police in the US will typically back in for this exact reason. You never know when you will have to leave in a hurry due to an emergency, and if you are in a hurry, you don't want to be forced to back out slowly as you watch to avoid backing into other people walking to their cars. Even if it's not an emergency, leaving is just easier when you can drive right out.

^{Backing-in outside an old house - By m-louis}

Anyway, there you go. They had a few more questions about it (The wife, for example, was worried that others may impatiently honk at you if you back in as they might in America, but I assured her that since the majority of Japanese back in, they are completely used to it and are patient.) but overall that is the long and short of it.

^{These car lift parking places are impressive - By Joseph Tame}

So how about your country? How do people park around you? Let me know in the comments!

❦

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon.