Brat,
onderstaande heb ik als ingezonden brief naar de NYT verzonden. Ik denk niet dat het geplaatst gaat worden, want uit hun automatisch antwoord viel op te maken dat ik niet aan alle voorwaarden had voldaan.
Maar ik wilde je hem niet onthouden dus bij deze:
NB het is een reactie op dit artikel, maar ook goed leesbaar zonder dat je dat artikel in zijn geheel doorspit.
Dear Steven Kurutz,
I found myself wondering why a serious reporter at a serious newspaper would devote so much earnest attention to such a magnificently trivial topic as which way one parks a car. The most charitable explanation I can come up with is that the piece is designed to provoke and harvest reactions — not entirely unlike the way Donald Trump lobs cultural grenades into the public square just to see what explodes.
Since I was raised to be polite and to oblige when someone so clearly begs for a response, here it is.
From a European (Dutch) perspective, the whole “backing in is selfish and performative” framing is slightly surreal. In many places here, reversing into a space is simply considered the grown‑up thing to do: safer, more efficient, and frankly less theatrical than the slow, blind reverse back into moving traffic that head‑first parkers inflict on everyone else.
Safety is the obvious part: when you drive out forward, you actually see oncoming cars, cyclists and pedestrians, instead of trusting your mirrors, your camera and blind faith. You do the tricky, low‑visibility movement (reversing) into a stationary, well‑defined box, not into a live stream of distracted drivers and people crossing between cars.
It is also easier. With the steering wheels at what becomes the rear of your direction, you have far higher maneuverability backing in. You can place the car more precisely with smaller corrections. This is not a moral stance; it is just physics and geometry.
Because it is both safer (better visibility) and easier (better maneuverability), it is also faster when you add up the time going in and the time getting out. The head‑first parker may feel victorious shaving a few seconds off the arrival, but they pay it back with interest — in delay, in risk, and in the little traffic theater they stage when they finally depart.
And that brings me to politeness. If backing in is quicker in total, then it is in fact more considerate: you occupy and obstruct the shared space for a shorter period, and you create fewer moments of confusion and danger for others. To call that inconsiderate while defending the long, blind reverse back into the lane feels like a very Trumpian inversion of reality: loudly accusing others of the thing you are doing yourself, but with more swagger.
If anything, the idea that reverse parkers are overanxious status performers sounds like projection. What is more performative: calmly backing into a space once, or staging a three‑act drama every time you leave — reverse, stop, inch, brake, check your phone, trust the beeping sensors, hope the oncoming cyclist has good reflexes?
That said, let me conclude on a genuinely courteous note. In the end, what matters most for road safety is that people park in the way that makes them feel most competent and least stressed. A confident, relaxed driver — whether they back in or dive in nose‑first — is less likely to make stupid, dangerous mistakes, and that benefits everyone, including the health‑care system that has to pick up the pieces.
If the New York Times wants to keep publishing such grand national debates about parking, I will, in the spirit of civic duty, continue to help by backing my opinions in first.
Yours sincerely,
En ja Brat, ik heb hulp gehad van AI perplexity, maar alleen om er voor te zorgen dat het correct Engels is, alle ideeën en toon zijn van mij.
