Stories from Texas

Some of the most frustrating hours of our lives might be spent in a vehicle. After some hard times on the road, nothing can feel better than the perfect parking spot at the place you need to be. But how will you pull in? Texas Standard commentator WF Strong has some thoughts.

The full transcript of this episode of Stories from Texas is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.

WF Strong [00:00:00] Are you a fronter or a backer? Do you pull into a parking space frontwards or do you back in? If I were to drive by your home and look in your driveway, would I be greeted by headlights or tail lights? I went down to my local H-e-b and Wal-Mart stores to see what percentage of people are front doors and what percentage are backers using the new math, I learned by helping my daughter with her homework. I came up with some ridiculous ratios and so I had to resort to the old math where my conclusions are reached by eyeballing and guesstimating. Seems to me that about 30% of people back into parking spaces and if you restrict the survey pool to just pickup trucks, it is closer to 50-50. Half for fronters have for backers. Ask a few backers why they preferred that method of parking. A small woman driving a large extended cab pickup said it’s safer. I get the lay of the land when I come into the parking lot and pick an area where there’s nobody walking and nobody driving. I’m back right in. When I want to leave. I can also see the cross traffic and pedestrians more clearly. It’s safer. Safer for me, Safer for everybody. She also said that with a longer pickup truck, she can back in in one try, whereas if she heads in, she has to make several adjustments to straighten up and get between the lines. I ask a big bearded man who is driving an oilfield services pickup why he backed in and he said, Who wants to know? He regarded me with suspicion as if I had an offshore logo on my shirt somewhere. I said, I’m a backer myself. I’m just curious as to why other people choose to back into spaces. He said, I don’t have time for this. I got to go. But there’s your answer. I’m in the Gottago business. It’s faster. He shut the door and put the already running diesel engine in gear and sped away. It reminded me of my brother Redneck Dave, who was a lifelong backer. Every night he’d not only back his truck into his driveway, but he’d make sure to top off the gas, too. He’d say, I might have to be 300 miles from here by morning. I don’t have to stop for anything. I said, Sounds a bit paranoid. He said, No. If you wait till you’re paranoid, it’s too late. Talk to a guy driving a plumber’s truck and he said, I back in because I carry tools and parts in the bed of my truck. Can’t see where the dam passed all that when I have to back into people in traffic, He added. But if you can find a space, you can pull through. That’s the Holy Grail right there. A lady in a BMW backed in when she could have pulled in front words in less time, it seemed to me. Said she liked using the driving assist. That practically does it for you. That technology is coming to all vehicles in the near future. It saddens me. The kids today will never know the joy of mastering the intuitive physics required to parallel park on the first try. I know some people are annoyed at us backers thinking we are being obnoxious contrarians, but for most of us it comes down to feeling that it is safer, more efficient and faster. The bigger the pickup, the greater the truth in all of these. I’m WF Strong. These are stories from Texas. Some of them are true.

This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.