Allow me to paint a picture for you. You’re sitting in your car. You have secured your groceries, you’ve wrestled your trolley back to the corral like a good citizen, and you are ready to leave the shopping centre car park with whats remaining of your dignity. All you have to do now is reverse out of your parking spot.
Simple, right?
Wrong.
Because the moment you place your car in reverse—accompanied by the polite but desperate blinking of your reverse lights—some mysterious, universal force seems to alert every human, dog, scooter-rider, and rogue shopping trolley within a 5-kilometre radius that now is the time to walk or drive directly behind you. It is as if your car is suddenly emitting a signal that screams, “Yes, yes, right here! Cross behind me! Don’t look!” Allow me to examine this.
The Walkers
Let us start with the pedestrians. There are several distinct types:
- The Side-Eye Strollers
These are the ones who know you are trying to reverse but pretend they don’t. They see your blinking lights. They glance at your side mirror. They are fully aware. But they stare straight ahead with the commitment of an Oscar nominee and casually sashay behind you as if they are challenging you to reverse. You mouth, “Really?” but they never look. They’ve got earbuds in. They are immune to any potential consequences. Or maybe they just enjoy the power trip. We may never know.
- The Chaotic Family Herd
These people travel in packs. Mum, Dad, Nan, and five children under the age of ten. They don’t walk behind your car so much as spill behind it, like a family-sized slushy. You freeze, foot on the brake, praying that nobody drops a dummy under your tyres. One child lags behind—always one—and you have to wait the extra thirty seconds for him to remember he is part of the group.
Meanwhile, your cars in reverse and your dignity is in neutral.
- The Jogger with a Death Wish
This person has chosen your reversing car as their cardio obstacle course. They dart past like a startled gazelle, earbuds in, slick with sweat, utterly unaware that you were half a second away from turning them into an active hood ornament.
They don’t glance at you. You don’t glance at them. The moment passes. But deep down, you know you will never be the same again.
The Drivers
Ah, fellow motorists. You would think they would understand. You’d think they would respect the code. But no. Not when you’re reversing.
- The Impatient Zoomer
You have only just begun to ease backwards when a car appears out of nowhere and zooms past at Mach 3. You slam on the brake. They flash you a look that somehow says both “How dare you try to leave” and “You absolute imbecile.”
You’re left blinking, wondering if you imagined them. But no—your car is still gently rocking, your soul slightly unmoored.
- The Passive-Aggressive Waiter
This one sees you. They stop. They wait. You think, how kind! But then they inch forward… and stop again. Are they letting you go? Are they not? Is this a test of wills or a scene from a low-budget thriller? They give you a tight-lipped smile. You wave them on. They wave back. No one moves.
Eventually you reverse. Slowly. Cautiously. They nod with the slow satisfaction of someone who just beat you in chess using only their eyebrows.
- The Rear-End Creeper
This driver pulls in behind you so closely that reversing becomes not so much a manoeuvre as a telepathic negotiation. They are right there. You can see their nose through your rear-view mirror. Not their car’s nose. Their actual human nose. You blink in disbelief. They don’t move. You are left with two inches to reverse and an internal scream that could crack glass.
Why are they doing this? Is it a dominance thing? A parking lot power play? Or do they simply not understand how physics works?
The Existential Crisis
By now, you’re sweating. Your reverse lights have been blinking long enough to qualify as a cry for help. You wonder if you will ever leave. You wonder if anyone has ever successfully backed out of a parking space or if it’s all just a myth, like Atlantis or ironing bedsheets.
At one point you consider abandoning the car altogether. Just leave it. Change your name. Start a new life. Who needs groceries anyway?
But then, miraculously, a gap appears. The sea of humanity parts. You seize your chance, clutch the steering wheel with all the fervour of someone defusing a bomb, and reverse out with the precision of a cat burglar.
You have made it.
You’re out.
You whisper a quiet “thank you” to the parking gods and drive off, triumphant and trembling. Behind you, someone else turns on their reverse lights. And the cycle begins again.
But we have to wonder….
Why do people walk and drive behind us as we’re reversing? Perhaps it’s social oblivion. Perhaps it’s cosmic humour. Or perhaps, just perhaps, it is a collective test—one that separates the truly calm from the rest of us, who now need a lie down, a blanket, and a biscuit.
So next time you see someone reversing, show them a little grace. Do not walk behind them, do not drive around them, and do not pretend you’re too busy texting to notice the blinking lights. Just stop. Wait. Let them leave.
Because nobody wants to be the main character in a parking lot horror story.
