Dear Dr. Gridlock:
With all due respect, you're wrong for opposing backing into spaces in parking lots. It's much easier, once you learn to use your side mirrors, to park a larger vehicle in a parking spot if you back it in.
That is especially true when parking underground around concrete pillars. A little practice -- and trust in your mirrors -- can save time and costly paint jobs!
Rick Flowe
Fredericksburg
Dear Dr. Gridlock:
K.J. Dolney, you have got to be kidding! As a driver of a minivan, I cannot tell you how many near accidents I have experienced because drivers do not stop or slow down when other drivers are backing out of a spot. In some instances, it seems that the other drivers speed up so that you do not get in their way!
I have found that backing into a parking spot allows me to later pull forward slowly and look for vehicles on either side upon exiting.
My three toddlers sit in the last and middle rows of my van. They could be seriously injured if I backed into an aisle where I couldn't see what was coming because of other large vehicles on either side, and frenzied drivers were speeding through.
L.B. Manowski
Centreville
I thought drivers in the aisle have the right of way over people trying to back out of spots. Perhaps there's some confusion. This usually can be avoided by pulling through open, tandem parking spaces, or parking farther away in a less-busy part of the parking lot.
I-95 Improvements
An update on possible Interstate 95 improvements:
The state is entertaining two proposals from the private sector to increase the number of HOV-3 lanes from two to three in each direction and extend them from the Capital Beltway at least to Route 17 in Stafford County.
