Oh, boy, here’s another really good reason to not ever drive my car into Manhattan! If I saw someone “tapping” my car with theirs I’d be pissed. I think if this is necessary, you’re trying to park in a space that is way too small.
You are overlooking one very important fact.
All the parking spaces in Manhattan are too small. this is true regardless if you are driving a semi or a smart car.
No one knows why.
I think this is one of those things that can be learned but not really taught. People’s attempts to instruct or explain only get more and more complicated.
The reason is that you need to have a very clear idea of where your car is about to go when everything is backwards - most notably, the direction of steering as it relates to the direction of travel. Even a newbie driver fairly quickly begins to visualize the results before s/he turns the wheel going forward, but many people never quite get the hang of anything but simple straight movement in reverse.
BTW, in some states parallel parking used to be the “washout factor” in driving tests. It was item number one - if you couldn’t do it in a seemly amount of time and without a lot of bashing and scraping, the test was over and you got no license.
That’s a cop out. You can do it. Don’t set yourself up for failure. It takes time and practice. I’m 6’4" tall and can’t see the bumpers on any car I drive. Swooping hoods and tailgates make it all but impossible.
You mention spatial abilities. That’s where it’s all at.
A lot comes into play here. Including the wheel base of the vehicle and turning radius. Not just how much car is in front or behind the axles of your vehicle.
Learn your car first. Similar to Ricks idea of tapping sticks to the corners of your vehicle, I would do something else.
Put something on the ground. A traffic cone would be fine (if you happen to have a few 
) Or perhaps a lawn chair or anything light weight that won’t hurt your car.
Then, see how close you can get to it. Bump it a few times. Get some reference from where you are in the driver seat. ESPECIALY pay attention to the corners.
I think a very common mistake is not getting close enough to the curb. In order to get a ‘tighter’ parallel park, apply the brake during the step where you turn the steering wheel counter-clockwise (for USA drivers).
This is an excellent idea. do this both forwards and backwards. I did this with my children when they learned to drive. I think it helped.
I disagree with many of the posts here. I find the best way to parallel park is to turn the wheel hard to the right to get started, then straighten out as you back in, and then hard to the left as you finish. Basically an “S” with a straight line in the middle.
I’m not even going to start with listing all the errors in everybody else’s answers 
…so I’ll restrict myself to pointing out what can seem like the bleedin’ obvious, which is don’t just rely on your mirrors, sit up straight, turn your head and shoulders as far around as possible, so you’re actually looking in the direction of travel.
Looks like everyone else has the techniques covered so I’ll just offer an alternative.
The Lexus LS 460L sedan. It parks itself.
Other than that, head for an empty parking lot and practice, practice, practice.
That is pretty much what I described above. Depending on how much rear overhang your car has, and how far you were from the curb to start with the straight part of the S may be very short or non-existent.
Also I would guess that you did not make these smooth S with a bit of straight parking moves when you were first learning to park.
I thought that was a given. Just common sense to use ALL your ability to see around. Not just mirrors.
Er. If you can’t estimate, then how do you manage to park in non-parallel parking spaces, or to stop at a red light without running down pedestrians or sticking out into the striped part?
I definitely do agree that you should try it out in a parking lot with the giant traffic cones from Home Depot. You can knock those suckers right over multiple times and insurance won’t mind. 
Before I moved to Seattle, I couldn’t parallel park very well. I’ve gotten better, but I’m still no expert on it. And I got better by trying the trick a lot and sweating bullets and hoping that nobody saw me tap their car.
You’d be surprised. Particularly if people are saying they’ve got reduced visibility because they’re short.
Interesting. My Wife is 5’2". I guess many would counsider that short. Though I know that she counts on the look over the shoulder when EVER backing up or doing a shoulder check when changing lanes (we drive SUVs).
I agree with the S-with-straight-segment method. The question is, though, how do you adjust for variance of conditions (size of space, how you started out, etc) and when do you change from segment to segment?
My method:
1)Pull up parallel to the car in the front of the spot.
2)Turn the car toward the curb until the **center of your rear windshield ** is lined up with the **passenger-front ** corner of the rear car. This means that for the straight segment, you’ll be headed directly for that corner.
3) Move back in a straight line until your driver’s side rear tire is in line with the other two cars’ driver’s side wheels, or just before this point (depends on the car). Since this is your pivot point for the final part of the turn, it makes sense to put this wheel in place before anything else.
4) Now pivot on that rear driver’s wheel by cutting the wheel all the way to the other side and going back until your car is straight. Since you aimed at the rear car and stopped just before it, you should be in the rear-most position possible in the parking spot. Since you aimed at the passenger’s side of that car, you should be in the curb-most spot you can be.
I find this method to be the best because it requires no spacial sense, just a line of sight to the car behind you and looking at where the edge of the other cars is. It also adjusts itself for short spaces, long ones, and where you’re too close to/far from the car in the front of the spot when you start the parking. If you look at the geometry of it, you’ll see that at the beginning of the final “straighten out” phase, you’ll always have your rear tire in place and your car pointed at the right angle. Naturally, you have to adjust this for different cars (since their pivot point isn’t always the tires) but only very minimally.
When I was teaching my wife to parallel park, we got some cardboard boxes and set them out in the back parking lot of the Target across the street. We then circled around so that she could make a test run at PP’ing; and the security guard had stolen our boxes! :smack:
As a proudly expert parallel parker in NYC (I often nail the curb within 3 inches of my door while leaving less than 2 inches of slack in front and back), I have to agree that Parking By Braille is a necessity of life. As long as a tap doesn’t become a ram it’s nothing to get excited about, on the receiving or the giving end. No dent = no foul. Tiny scratches will build up over time but that’s life in the city. Oh, and get used to see-sawing back and forth about 10 or 15 times to make use of a tiny angle of attack.
It’s why they sell those rubber bumper protectors to put on all these modern cars that don’t have real bumpers any more.
I second this as a good piece of practical advice. But you need to practice a few times to get the feel of the turning radius of your car. The “turn the wheel all the way” strategy can only be used effectively if you can do it at the right point relative to the car you’re parallel to and still slide into the spot without hitting the curb with your back wheel too soon.
If the spot is tight you might have to repeat the process a few times, making the “S” more of a Qix-like thing.
Bumper-parking is a way of life in Montreal too. I once sat in a restaurant and watched 6 cars… one of them a cop car!.. bump their way in and out of a tiny spot in front of the restaurant. From where I was sitting (and knowing what the road was like further back), there wasn’t anywhere else to park for several blocks. You just have to do it sometimes.
I also didn’t know how to parallel park (at least, not very well!) until I moved here, but I had to learn quickly! We live on a one-way street, no driveways or parking lots, so parallel is the only way to do things. I had to learn to parallel park on both the left and right (I find it easier on the right) because both sides of the street can be used for parking.
I’m not short, but I know that I have absolutely no depth perception. Medically speaking, even; I just cannot see depth, and in something like parallel parking, that’s exactly where this “handicap” pops up. And yet, I can still do it. I don’t try and force into spots that my husband can do easily, because I just can’t tell if my car will fit or not (usually I discover that it could have!), but I’ve learned to tell what kind of spot I can fit into, and I can do it, 99.9% on the first try. When I screw it up, it’s usually because I’m in traffic and I struggle with determining the distances to the other parked cars and the assholes on the road that don’t give me the space I actually need to safely do the maneuver. It’s had to parallel park out of what is essentially a parallel parked situation in the first place
Just practice practice practice. Get someone you trust who can calmly walk you through it, and who will just shut up while you’re trying and only tell you what you’re doing wrong when you a) ask or b) finish parking. And practice. And practice some more. You’ll get it.