I always was a decent parker, but with my last two cars I occasonally park, get out, and realize I’m more crooked than I’d have quessed.
The only thing I can think of is that the more aerodynamic car shapes have gotten, cars are now more ovoid than rectangle, and my brain is still parking a car with straighter sides???
Dunno. Maybe it’s just because I’m old now.l 
Yeah, I use to drive a stick. I could do anything with that car.
Really, it’s normal for you to ask strangers to drive their cars for them (or forcibly kick them out, it’s not clear which), and get thanked for it?
I’ll confess to being a terrible parker. I’ll drive out of my way to an easier parking spot.
I am so with you on this. There you are parallel parking like you’ve been doing for years, and suddenly you find yourself in this awkward, contorted parking position that is utterly unfamiliar. All I can ever think is that it’s punishment for parallel parking hubris.
We don’t need to discuss our problems with parallel parking. That’s hard! 
But if you can’t make a right angle park correctly, how do you turn a corner on the street?
Ha! Me too. Well, actually, the first car I ever drove was a '68 VW Beetle, but shortly thereafter I had (actually had the use of, it wasn’t mine) the big old Suburban.
I learned to park in New York City, which means parallel parking. I didn’t even know there was any other kind of parking until I’d been driving for a few years.
In fact, upon review, I noticed that the problem is the driver doesn’t use the wheel enough, especially moving forward, to re-position the car. Which is strange, because you’d think someone would be more comfortable doing that while moving forward.
Props to moi-bad-self for crazy p’parkin skillz, yo!
There are skinny residential streets that are closer to my school than the faculty lot. Often the only parking spots are small gaps that no one else can fit in.
Except moi*!* (pronounced “Muhhhh-WAH!")
ETA: I think that I just have an understanding that, when I’m backing, I’m using the front wheels to angle the back wheels. Almost fifty years of practice doesn’t hurt, either, when I’m slipping into a spot with 6” space front and back [/sneakbrag]!
Yep.
If you happen to see NASCAR on tv, do you also loudly ask if they’re still turning left?
(I do.)
My friend and I like to spend summer evening sitting on his porch, sipping cold adult beverages, and judging people’s parallel parking skills. We can always tell the new tenets in the high-rise across the street because they are usually young people who have never had to parallel park before. Back-and-forth, in-and-out, and occasionally they give up in despair to find a better spot. My friend has mad parking skills, and I’m often amazed at how he can fit his pickup into spots with less than a foot of clearance.
You get credit for being a courteous driver; a discourteous driver is one who has bad parking skills, but instead of driving out of their way to an easy spot, insists on parking badly in a challenging spot.
For most of my adult life, i’ve lived in cities, often in neighborhoods with narrow streets and tight parking. As a result, i’m a pretty damn good parallel parker most of the time, although, like a couple of other people here, i occasionally have a parking brainfart and screw things up.
But some people are truly diabolical. The front balconies over our place overlook a relatively busy street here in San Diego. There are a bunch of restaurants and bars within walking distance, and this is an area where not many places have their own parking lots, so street parking is often at a premium, especially during the evenings and on weekends. My wife and i will occasionally stand on the balcony marveling at the futile efforts of some drivers to get their cars into a parallel parking space. I have seen it take literally 8 or 10 attempts, even when the space is easily large enough for the vehicle in question.
I think one issue is that this is Southern California, where the majority of the parking is in marked spaces in parking lots. Many of the people who drive to our neighborhood bars and restaurants come in from suburbs and exurbs, where shopping malls and workplaces and other businesses provide such parking lots, and where parallel parking is not a common necessity. And plenty of them drive massive SUVs, which they’re terrible at controlling even in basic forward driving mode, and which they simply cannot reverse into a kerbside parking space.
On a related issue, i think that one of the most common sources of basic incompetence in many drivers is a lack of any clear understanding about how wide their car is. I can’t count the number of times, here and in other cities, where i’ve been driving down an alley or a relatively narrow street or parking lot aisle, and will be almost forced off the road by someone coming the other way who insists on taking up most of the passage, and who has a good couple of yards of space on the right-hand side of their car. In some cases, i see the driver peering frantically over the hood, desperately trying not to hit anything, when you could comfortably drive a Honda Goldwing touring bike through the gap they have to spare.
It doesn’t even have to be a narrow street; the streets around our house are plenty wide even with cars parked on both sides, yet at least 50% of the people I encounter cannot do much more than drive right down the middle. I, uh, encourage them to improve their driving skills by driving right at them until they figure out how to move over.
Turns out they’re doing the exact same thing to you.
No, I’m over to the right, but if they don’t do anything, they won’t be able to fit past me.
Oh god. People not being able to part their cars on the first try is one of my biggest pet peeves. I have no idea why because there are much better peeves. This one, however, is one that drives me most nuts. You drive your car every day! How can you not park it?! How is this something you haven’t figured out?! Most of these people have been driving for over a decade at least! How many times have you parked? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Hell, I can *back *my truck into a spot at 90 degrees on the first try! How can you not do it driving straight in, in your hatchback?
Just last week I was about to pull out of my spot and drive home when a woman in a Civic decided to park in the spot next to me. A Civic, not an Escalade or Suburban or whatever else. A tiny little Honda. She pulls half into the spot, doesn’t like it, pulls out, pulls in, pulls out, over and over. Seven times! Seven! I assure you that is an accurate count. How can you not park a tiny car in a regular spot in seven tries?! (I really wish people had to retake the driver’s test every year.)
Before my current car, all of my cars had the gas tank on the driver’s side, and I was fine pulling for gas. But the new one is on the passenger side and you’re right, I have a hard time judging it. I get out and I have parked like eight feet from the pump! And when I turn into a perpendicular space, I want to leave the other car enough room so their door doesn’t hit mine, and end up leaving so much that it would be a physical impossibility. :smack:
If they’re right on top of you, it’s an obvious problem, but if other cars are far away or not present, I tend to drive down the middle as well. It gives me more time to react if something pops out between cars parked on the side.
I cant lie. I bought a Ford Explorer 9 months ago and STILL misjudge parking spots from time to time.
First vehicle Ive ever had a big problem with, Ive driven Ford F150s and F250s before, but the SUV i shard for me to park, for whatever reason.