Back dat Impala up.

Can someone please explain to my why some people can only park by backing into a parking space? It bugs me because it always seems like it takes them forever to actually get their car in there right and they hold up everyone else who just wants to get around. I almost got out of my car today and offered to park this lady's car for her. Honestly, it took at least 2 minutes for her to get it right and traffic was piling up behind me.

And what I REALLY don't get is the idiots who back in to angled spaces. Say if the lot goes like this:

/ / /
you would drive from the top down and pull into a space. When you leave you pull out and you're on your way. But there's always some schmuck who can't seem to figure this out and backs in and is facing the WRONG way when they pull out of the space. The isle is only big enough for one car and you're only supposed to go one way.

And I see people do this in parking garages! Seriously, I parked yesterday in a garage. Traffic flows one direction, the spots are angled and there's even a sign as you come in asking you not to back in. I can't imagine any reason why someone would back in as if would be incredibly difficult to do and it would make pulling out equally difficult, to say nothing of the fact that there's absolutely no reason your car needs to be facing out in a parking garage. Yet there it was. Some big ass pickup's headlights staring at me in a row of cars parked correctly.

My other favorite is at the grocery store when people try to load groceries into a car they've backed in. Rather than pulling into the space and leaving a clear shot at their trunk, they backed in, so they have to try to squeeze the cart between to cars to get to where their trunk is. Then they have to squeeze between their back bumper and the bumper of the car behind them to load things into the car. Does that makes any sense at all?

Really, I can't see any advantage or even a reason for backing into parking spaces, yet so many people do. Can someone please explain to me what is the appeal here?

And if you must back in, at least learn how to do it correctly. Man, I'm sick of waiting on people who need five or six passes to back their Buick in when if they'd just pulled into the space we could have both been on our way.

EDIT: FlavaDave over at IMN sends this great link... Fancy Parking! Awesome! Thanks for pointing that one out!