parallel parking

This would be me trying to parallel park!

LOL....parallel parking was the easiest thing for me to do when I was driving a car. I don't have problems with my truck if I take off the towing ball.....that is the most dangerous part of my truck & I have run into 3 cars with it because I didn't see the little cars in back of my HUGE truck & it was the tow ball that did all the damage. I have learned to take it off when I'm not towing a trailer.

Who would think that a stupid little tow ball could do $800 in damage to a small car? The guy parked right in back of me on the street in front of his house & in backing up to get out of the place (not even driving at 5 mph) it did that massive amount of damage & I couldn't leave without telling the guy.

A few weeks later some idiot parked in back of my truck when I was in a store. He parked in a place that wasn't even a parking spot. I got angry at him & told him it was his fault & I wasn't going to cover the damage.

Another time last year in the snow, another guy parked next to a snow bank that had been graded into a pile instead of parking in a parking spot.....again, right in back of my truck & I nailed his back fender & it dented the whole thing. I paid him off with money for the part & to cover some labor. Figured it was cheaper than dealing with insurance & had him sign a waiver that what I paid was "payment in FULL" & that it was what we agreed on & he couldn't come back for more.

Those last 2 times weren't even in a parallel parking situation.

I have trouble parking a trailer

Me, too. I don't even try to parallel park unless no other cars are within crashing distance!

I haven't had to parallel park for years! When I lived in the twin cities I was so good at it I could back over the snow piles made by the plows and not hit a car.

I'm totally out of practise as I haven't driven much in the last few years.

The other night I was designated driver and drove my boyfriends car. It is one of those with cameras all over the place. I actually found it a distraction, gave up trying to parallel park, and just drove around the corner where I could nose into a spot.

I don't drive but parallel parking looks really hard. Makes me happy I don't drive.

The image in your first post doesn't come up but I know I've always had trouble parallel parking!

I'm better than I used to be but I still end up too far from the curb. When I was a teen to take my driving test, I deliberately went to one that didn't require parallel parking. Or I'd FAIL!!

I have an even harder time parking in a spot between two cars. I'm always afraid I'll hit one or both trying to park between them. I see people easily do this all the time, even knowing how far they are from both cars without having to get out and look like I do!

If you put blind-spot mirrors on your side-view mirrors parallel parking becomes easy, for now you can see the curb.

Ahem...some of us are beyond even that kind of help. lol

I only park in a parallel universe.

My parents wouldn't let me get my license until I could repeatedly parallel park without difficulty. As a teenager this was a tremendous motivator to learn how!!

I can relate to that......as a teenager, my drivers licence was my license to FREEDOM from a mom who didn't drive & a dad who worked when I needed to go anywhere. Life was HELL until I got my license so I was truly motivated.

I missed the summer driver training class I wanted to go to because of problems getting there. Ended up taking it the fall semester in high school....it was ok because I couldn't get my license until I was 16 & that didn't happen until Feb.....but I got my license on my birthday. It was my gift to MYSELF.

I had to laugh though.....I basically failed the driver training simulator. It was like watching a movie & I didn't relate to it being anything close to real so I ran over everything that got in front of me & crashed into cars along the side of the road. Put me in A REAL CAR & I was un-stopable.....stick me in a simulator & forget it.

basically self taught. Yes, dad was with me but he mostly read a book or even slept

Back in the Dark Ages when I got my license you had to parallel park as part of the driving test. They used two orange cones to simulate the cars you were parking between. The person ahead of me backed in, ran over that cone. Pulled forward, ran over that cone. Sped backwards and - yep you guessed it ran over the cone behind them. Then darted forward over that cone again. They finally drove on. I figured whatever I did would look good in comparison.

I suspect my poor parallel parking now comes from being out of practice.

Someone mentioned parking a trailer. Been years since I had to so I'm not sure how rusty I'd be, but back in the day I could back up to the trailer, hook up and be off. No fuss, no muss. Backing the trailer? No big deal. People used to come get me to park their rig at shows.

Lol....LL....yep when others do bad we know we can do better than that.

When I moved here, I bought my horse trailer back in Calif on my first trip back to get a medium size moving truck to haul some of my stuff here. Izzy was stuck in Ca with strangles. I ended up hitching up the trailer just before Christmas & loaded up our 13 eskie dogs & giving H a chance to see if he could make it work. I had NEVER hauled a trailer before & was still getting used to my truck. Pulled into Louisville to pick up our daughter for Christmas at my new farm. Got her into my truck a the car in front of us hit a cat....my daughter & I went to rescue it ( looked like broken back). Found the animal shelter to take it to to have it put to sleep. The animal shelter was down this curving driveway with no way to turn around. Luckily one of the guys working there knew how to back up a trailer or I would have still been there 9 years later. At that time I only knew how to go forward.

Since then I have spent a lot of time learning how to back up & am good at hitching up on first try. Amazing how much difference practice makes.

My side view mirror helps a bit as I now know what "distance" I need to see in it to know I'm close enough to the curb. But I still open the door to be sure.

But I only do this on a spot behind a driveway.....That way I know nobody can park in front of me and I get "boxed in". That's another thing I'm afraid of----finding myself unable to get out because both cars are too close to me.

Parallel parking (to me) is one thing but trying to do it BETWEEN two cars is another thing altogether.

I don't know what kind the DMV I avoided required since I stayed away from that location for that reason.

I'm sure practice is the key but no way for me to safely do that. I'd rather just find an easier spot to park in even if it's not too close to my destination. It's exercise and I need that too.

I think I have "poor spacial perception." I think that's the phrase when you have trouble judging distance. It's like it's hard for me to tell how fast/close an oncoming car is coming when I turn left. I prefer to just let them come across even if the **** behind me is honking.

when I had my IQ test done and found I was 'lacking' in the visual spatial arena, my first thought was 'THAT's why I can't parallel park a car!' LOL

I never had much trouble in the past, but ask me to do it now? NO WAY! I have been accustomed to pulling in and out of a driveway, so why go back??

But it is a nightmare for me now though.