I’m amazed tat people still need to ask – or that people still have trouble with one of the simplest manoeuvres you can carry out in a car.
You need about one and a half car lengths to get into. Then having drawn alongside the car you plan to park behind, reverse back slowly until the back of your vehicle is level with the back of the stationery one. Steer fairly briskly left until you have full lock. Look where you want the back of the car to go, so that you can make minor adjustments to your steering if necessary and when your dashboard is level with the back of the stationery vehicle, steer left lock to right lock fairly briskly – watching the angle of entry, so that you can adjust it as necessary. As you draw alongside the kerb, straighten the steering. Having got in, getting out is a doddle.
The article has some useful diagrams, but, frankly, there’s no excuse for not being able to do it and if you can’t, swallow your pride and go along to a driving school who will happily teach you.
Because it wasn’t part of the test when I did it, I had to teach myself to do it. At first I was a bit rubbish, either getting too close or too far away from the kerb, but after a bit of practice I now get it right nearly every time.
There was talk on the radio today of a youtube video of someone making a hash of parking. I have seen one of these before and was pretty appalled at the lack of basic driving skills. I wondered how on earth this person had passed the driving test.
It wasn’t part of the test when I did it, nor was it when I was an instructor, but all of my students could do it by the time they took the test.
Much like Stony ground I had to teach myself.
I can do it OK if in the direction of traffic , so passenger side against parked drivers side.
But if I try to do it against the direction of traffic as you sometimes have to do , as there may be no other spot and if you go down the road to turn round and come back on it correctly , some other sod may have nicked it.
I mostly end up making a complete pigs ear of it and drive away in embarrassment and look for another spot.
There is a very specific technique using geometry. The trick is to get the car at a 45 degree angle by the time your dashboard lines up with the back of the car you are reversing around. That way, providing you are about a metre and a bit out when starting the exercise, you will not hit it as you come in and you can concentrate on the vehicle behind. Use its numberplate as a focal point if that helps.
Firstly being near 80 I was never taught it.
But mostly don’t want to do it. Because when you do – some time later the original cars have moved and others haved parked behind or in front of you so close that you can’t get out when you want to.
That can happen whichever way you park, of course.
I WAS taught it…but haven’t had to do it since my test, as I almost never park on the street.
The full video was posted up at mine yesterday… 😕
It is painful to watch but the boy’s commentary is very amusing… 😀
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tf4TIWECZ30
As has been said – how can such a person be safe on the road…?What would happen in an emergency situation if she had to reverse in a hurry…?
It used to be much more difficult: before the widespread availability of power-assisted steering.
Best regards
I first learned to do it without power steering. Yeah, having it helps 😉
When I took my driving test in the nineteen-seventies, reversing skills were tested by reversing into a side road. this, to my mind, is a ridiculous and pointless manouver that no-one would ever perform in real life. The parallel parking manouver is a genuinely useful skill, so some things have improved. I took my motorcycle test in the nineties and recall having to do a U-turn feet up. Easy on an SR125 Yamaha. On my big heavy lump, not really practical.
Yeah, it is. I do it on the R1150RT without even thinking about it. On the bigger bike you really need to trust the machine, focus on where you want to end up, so turn your head and counter balance. The bike will go where you point your eyes and in most cases will turn a lot easier than you think it will.
OK, Challenge accepted. I will let you know if I succeed. I will also be totally honest should I fail.
When I learnt to drive it was not part of the test, however my mother made sure I could park. She took me out looking for smaller and smaller spaces to park in. All this was before we had power steering, and my 1967 Landy still brings me out in a sweat if I have not used it for a while!
With regard to the bike turning, it depends to an extent on the style of bike, i.e. an R1 may be trickier to turn in the road feet up than a Deauville, but I have found the larger bikes are more stable and so easier to manoeuvre.
You won’t have such a good turning circle on a sports bike, but the principle remains the same – turn your head and focus on where you want to end up, slip the clutch, drag the rear brake and use counterbalancing to keep the bike stable.