In fact, I’d be willing to bet virtually everyone reading this has at some point in recent years complained about being held up in a parking lot by someone backing into a space with all the speed and agility reserved for docking the U.S.S. Nimitz. And worse, some of those people see this happening with regularity but still continue to back into spaces themselves, muttering to the dashboard saint they’ve erected to their own ego, “Thank God, I’m not like those other people.”

But wait, there are two final indignities that bear mentioning. When people back into spaces, they’re also cutting off access to their trunk or back hatch. What if you end up buying something large or walk away from the store having purchased more than you expected? I see this all the time when people are trying to load stuff into the back of a car, where their access is blocked off by a hedgerow or someone else’s bumper. And there’s rarely room to wheel a cart between cars to get it closer to the trunk if you have something heavy. When you pull forward into a space, the trunk is perfectly accessible.

Lastly, even if you were dropped on your head as a child and are somehow unpersuaded by the arguments I’ve made so far, I hope we can all agree that backing into angled parking spaces should be a felony. Somehow this is a real thing people do, despite the fact that backing into an angled space requires making a 48-point turn going backward. And regardless, when you back into an angled space, any attempt to exit that space begins with the car pointed in the opposite direction of the flow of traffic, which is inconsiderate, to put it mildly.

(via Instapundit)

[I endorse this message whole-heartedly — but if you don’t, I will post the rebuttal piece later today. — Ed]