Why am I so bad at parking?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:BTW, you should not rent a car in Europe. Try parallel parking while 10 cars are honking at you!

I LOL at this. I feel the same way in the US, though. I always feel pressured to hurry up when there is a car behind me, and then of course, I screw up the parking.
Just as I thought I was getting decent at it, I had to get a new car, which is a bit bigger than my old car (I wanted a smaller car, but couldn't find one that met most of my criteria), and now I have to re-learn to parallel park with the larger car.

This is one of the reasons I refuse to buy a super big car. I see people with these really big cars struggling to park. It's painful to watch.

[Anonymous]

Spatial awareness problems. My wife is also a terrible, anxious parker and it's because she has awful spatial awareness, both in the car and in everyday life. For example, she has zero awareness that she may be blocking people in the grocery store.

Honestly, I've found that people who didn't play sports growing up have terrible spatial awareness. They never learned how to read others' body movements, have difficulty judging distance, and just generally don't have that sixth sense of predicting the movement of surrounding people/things.

[Anonymous]

Because you're a Maryland driver?

[Anonymous]

I'm pretty impressed than no one has made a "woman driver" joke yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spatial awareness problems. My wife is also a terrible, anxious parker and it's because she has awful spatial awareness, both in the car and in everyday life. For example, she has zero awareness that she may be blocking people in the grocery store.

Honestly, I've found that people who didn't play sports growing up have terrible spatial awareness. They never learned how to read others' body movements, have difficulty judging distance, and just generally don't have that sixth sense of predicting the movement of surrounding people/things.

I think this is part of the problem. My dad was an excellent driver most of his life. In Europe, drove hours and hours and was a driving instructor in his youth. At 73, he asked a parking guy at a river promenade to parallel park his car. At first, I was surprised, but he knew his awareness has gone down and he was not a fool to damage his Audi and other people's cars.

[Anonymous]

Haha
It’s these small parking spaces

[Anonymous]

I have always had difficulty with parking an SUV; in my trusty old Saturn, it was a different story. I could park that thing anywhere. But I finally got a CRV that has a back-up camera, and that helps tremendously. I now back in with confidence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is one of the reasons I refuse to buy a super big car. I see people with these really big cars struggling to park. It's painful to watch.

But you’re admitting you can’t even park the car you have. There are no more lousy big car drivers than there are lousy small car drivers. Don’t blame it on the big vehicles, blame it on the drivers. I can parallel park or back into a space with my F150 like nobody’s business.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I used to be able to parallel park and back into a space with no problem. Then I got out of the habit, so practice is key. Also, my car now is too big. I regret getting such a large SUV, but I needed room for 4 car seats.

vous I had to parallel park when I lived in Old Town and could squeeze in easily even the opposite side of a one way. Though I took a spatial awareness test and scored highly, I am not confident and get unnerved if people are waiting so being basically forced to is what helped. Then I moved to a house with a driveway and lost the skill. I can still do it but I'm super slow and look for really big spots.

[Anonymous]

UK trained driver here again. Parallel parking should not be harder with bigger cars. If you know at which point you should be be relative to the parked car and when you should started steering while reversing you will be fine reversing with one smooth movement. I do often see cars trying to parallel park using the incorrect technique. They reverse, pull out, reverse and eventually give up. I then put my larger car in the same spot.
This is not showing off. It’s the hours and hours spent in a British School of Motoring car learning exactly until you can do it with no mistakes in 3 maneuvers- (1) positioning your car and knowing when to start steering p(2) Reversing in one smooth motion (3) adjusting distance with car behind.
Another advantage of learning in the U.K. is that you can get into the tiniest parking spots because you know it will be 45 minutes before you find another one.

[Anonymous]

You could call a driving school and arrange for a private lesson.

[Anonymous]

I'm actually a better parallel parker than regular parker. There are actually rules as to when to turn the wheel so I can follow that. Plus we had a lot of driving instruction on it. Regular perpendicular parking -- especially in the tight spots around here -- I am not good at. Bad spatial skills plus where I grew up we had huge diagonal parking spaces!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because you're a Maryland driver?

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm actually a better parallel parker than regular parker. There are actually rules as to when to turn the wheel so I can follow that. Plus we had a lot of driving instruction on it. Regular perpendicular parking -- especially in the tight spots around here -- I am not good at. Bad spatial skills plus where I grew up we had huge diagonal parking spaces!

I am the same way. I learned the trick from watching an old episode of Degrassi (reverse straight until you can see the rear view mirror, turn when until you see the bumper then straighten) I also think in some older areas the spots are more narrow. I do find that when I visit my parents in the West where things were developed more recently and land is plentiful, the spots are huge!

[Anonymous]

Yep me too