Parking In Preparation for the Apocalypse

We've all seen these people.
Maybe you are even one of them.

You are trying to head home after a rather crowded and arduous day walking about, milling about and shopping, but your progress is hindered in the parking lot as you and three other drivers (one of them leaving just like you, and two of them just arriving to the parking lot) are stalled in said parking lot waiting for the driver of the comparably large vehicle to successfully maneuver into position to finally back into the only open parking space for three rows that happens to be in between a Volkswagen Beetle and a family van that has every so barely grazed the left outer edge of its parking space with its left rear tire.

I don't have an issue with waiting for anyone to park. I also understand the task it can be to find a suitable spot to store my vehicle in while I scour shelves for the latest bargain books or the freezer section for ice cream sales. I do have an issue with people who make the simple task of stopping their car within the plainly painted lines an event equal in intensity to the final round of an Olympic figure-skating competition.

We are so impressed and so glad you can engage the Reverse Gear in your vehicle and appropriately glance in each side-mirror at alternating intervals while at the same time applying just the correct amount of pressure of the accelerator with your foot - and into a regulation size parking space between two previously parked and stationary vehicles. My, my, my. That is a noteworthy accomplishment.

These people park their vehicles this way even when the parking lot is not crowded. But we who are behind them searching for parking spaces still do have to wait to move any further in our journey until their pirouette is complete. What could have been a slightly sharp turn to the left or right followed by a stern application of the brakes finished up with a backward turn of the key out of the ignition that would have taken three or four seconds becomes a thirty second escapade, and even longer if the driver truly is inside an Escapade. 

There have to be reasons for this parking behavior. I can't believe they would all risk the inconvenience of their trunks, tailgates, hatch backs and rear doors being blocked by someone parking in the space behind them forwards or backwards. The only guaranteed mostly-open areas around the vehicles in a parking lot are the parking lot lanes themselves - parking front-bumper first into a parking space ensures the rear of your vehicles will be available for full access when you return. Perhaps these drivers don't like to back out of parking spaces, so they allay those fears by backing into them. Maybe these drivers wish to show the front of their vehicles off to the world and not the back ends, but that all depends on which angle the audience approaches the vehicle doesn't it? Maybe they want others to think the vehicle was not driven to the parking lot at all and instead dropped in place via an anti-gravity ray, but there is no more power left in the Vertex crystals on the mothership for a return zap of the ray.

I finally think I understand the motives of these drivers. Their motive must be for safety's sake. If something important/ vital/earth-shattering/universe-bending should happen after they park their vehicles and leave them in the parking lot, they will be the first ones able to drive out of their spaces and toward safety because they will not be caught up in any of the backing up of their vehicle anyone else will be involved in. This will give them a second or two  jump on the rest of us.  

Yes, I will have to re-think my parking habits.

I will have to re-evaluate how I temporarily store my vehicle while I am in the bookstore because I would hate to get left behind as we all flee the Apocalypse.