Antique & Classic Cars Blog
Pet Peeve a da Week**
Thursday, August 23rd, 2007Street parking in the city…. How long do you have to live or work in one to get it? I was picking up some Chinese food on the way to have dinner and work with my wife downtown last night (romantics take note) and I saw what made me wish I was on the motorcycle: The 3/4 Spot.
When you parallel park on an unmetered street, don’t give the middle wiper blade to the next driver looking for a spot by leaving just less than one between you and another car. Leave a couple feet ahead, leave a couple behind. Back in. If you can’t parallel park, practice till you can. When space is at a premium, don’t take more than you need.
(**Not that this will necessarily be weekly.)
2 Responses to "Pet Peeve a da Week**"
I’ve had recent first hand experience with this. My 16 year old son aced his behind the wheel test last month, including a perfect parallel park. So last weekend he repeated this when driving the family to an event, snagging a spot and getting in comfortably. Great. But when we returned to our car we found ourselves parked in without enough room to maneuver out! After several attempts I was finally able to back up the curb far enough to pass. It burst his confidence in wanting to parallel park again!
I understand the problem, but that\’s the opposite of what I was talking about–leaving almost but not quite a full space ahead or behind. People do that either so they can cheat and exit the spot without a three-point maneuver, or because they don\’t care about maximizing people\’s use of street parking. I\’m from Philadelphia, where people park close (same in NY and Boston) because spaces are hard to come by.
Sounds like your son is doing great for his first month of driving. He\’ll learn to get out of tight spots soon enough, and as a teenager, them being of the parking kind is about the best thing you both could hope for. :^)
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MotorMouth Kris Palmer, freelance auto writer and editor, blogs about vintage cars, the collectible auto scene and just about anything else that goes vroom.
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