Is it ok to go backwards on a one way street?

Do you mean driving in reverse? Are you moving in the direction of the arrow or against the direction of the arrow?

If you’re going the right way.

@Jeruba Against the one way direction.

No. The “one way” sign tells you which direction the vehicles should be moving, not which direction they should be facing.

Only when parallel parking.

Yes, at least for a short distance, unless some place has a specific law or against that (or a sign saying not to).

I did it a couple of weeks ago. Backed up about ⅓ of a block to back into a driveway. (There were no other cars moving on that block.)

But you don’t have right of way over people behind you, and you are more or less always responsible for any accident when you’re moving in reverse, so you need to make sure there’s no one behind you, and be very careful.

(Eh, other answers are getting me to doubt the accuracy of my answer. But I would think that as long as you’re not backing into an intersection, and if there aren’t other cars behind you, that it’s ok to reverse a bit.)

So—you’re going in the right direction on a one-way street, and facing the direction you’re going, and now you want to reverse?—back up? The situation that @Zaku is describing?

I think it’s okay under the conditions that @Zaku describes, but local traffic laws are not based on my opinion.

No. It’s not OK to drive the wrong direction.

@Jeruba Yeah. I was going the correct direction, and no one else was on that block, and I reversed about ⅓ the block (facing right direction, moving wrong direction) to back into a driveway.

(I would not have done it if anyone was visible behind me and wasn’t more than a whole block away, because then I’d be potentially messing with their use of the road.)

Sorry, @Zaku, I meant to address @RedDeerGuy1 as a matter of clarification. Your answer was entirely clear, thanks.

Driving the wrong way on a street is worthy of a traffic ticket. Although, there are exceptions, like if you back up a little into a parallel parking spot.

Not unless it’s an emergency, it’s against traffic law.

No. Why would you want to anyway?

@smudges My taxi driver overshot the alley way and backed up on a one way road and drove down the alley way to my back door.

Oh ok. . ..it sounded like you just wanted to know so you could do it or had done it.

@smudges In my case, I had parked on the road, did stuff on foot, then returned to the car and wanted to go someplace that I could get to much more easily if I backed up a bit, because the next intersection forward would require me to go several additional blocks out of the way in busy traffic to get where I wanted to go.

It’s not OK, but I do it from time to time when cycling, dependng on the traffic situation. If a car approaches I stop or go on the pavement.

Do those who think it’s not OK to reverse on a one-way road with no traffic, think it’s OK to reverse on a two-way road with no traffic?

It’s the same on a one way and a two way. Each lane has a correct direction for traffic. Small back-ups for parking are expected.

My mom once witnessed an accident in a parking lot and one of the women was cited for driving the wrong way on a one way in the parking lot. She was driving forward, but just saying the direction of traffic matters.

Sure, though there’s a difference between “this isn’t the best thing to do, can be dangerous, and you will tend to be at fault if something happens while you are doing it” and “it’s not allowed in any case”.

In our Tourist Town it was periodically done by large vechicles such as a Bus,Van,Truck going the wrong way on a one way street.

It got so bad the the Cops finally drove right up to the front of the offending vehicles and made them back up all the way back to the start of that street.

One particular huge Tour Bus had to back up three quarters of the way back to the startof his turn on the one way street as the Police car slowly drove it back fender to fender.

[Mod says] This discussion is in Social, but wildly off-topic responses are still against the rules. The topic is “driving”. Thanks.