parallel parking is a lost art.......

[j-c-c-62]

I took my driving test in a '59 Ford pickup. Instructor asked me, are you sure you want to use this? No power steering just a big steering wheel, three on the tree. Got it on the first try.

People today would have to put their cell phone down to attempt to parallel park.

I took my first driving test in my dad's 62 Polara 500.
I passed.
And I never returned it.

 

[ESOXER]

I do parallel park 5 time a week at my daughter's karate class. I have to go in front first because there's always someone 6" off my bumper and I can't back up, they can't back up because there's someone 6" off their bumper and they can't back up because there's someone 6" off their bumper.....

 

[Coelacanth]

Parallel parking is an essential lesson to learn as it teaches a driver spatial awareness of their vehicle in relation to others and the curb. New drivers need to learn where the front and rear of their car is, relative to other vehicles, and especially what happens when you turn backwards and understand where the side of your vehicle is relative to the car in front. If everyone truly understood the purpose of parallel parking, there would be far fewer parking lot bumper hits and scrapes.

 

[Triplegreen500]

I rode with my brother in law to a family function. He set the car on cruise control and kept saying don't worry the car will brake when it gets close, look I don't even have my feet near the pedals. It did work, but not something I would ever do.

Adaptive Cruise.

I have it in my Grand Cherokee and love it. Perfect for when the knucklehead in front of you can't maintain a speed and you'd have to keep cancelling and resetting normal cruise - set it for 10mph over their speed and it'll simply pace them anywhere up to that +10 speed. Also nice on back roads when you're stuck behind a tourist/sightseer. All you have to do is steer. Will even do a complete stop at a sign or a light if there's someone stopping in front of you.

 

[j-c-c-62]

If so, it ain't working. I admit, I don't "truly understand" the obsession with flunking a beginner driver over that one driving skill. I look at like a non swimmer, they don't go in the water, a poor parallel parker avoids parallel parking, and nobody dies.

I taught my 3 kids "spatial awareness" by having them drive down a straight road and tell them to stop, hand them a tape measure and have them measure how centered they were in the lane. and repeat.

After that was mastered I put a quarter on the road, and had them stop as close as they could to it without running over it with the left front tire and then we did the right front.

To repeat myself, go karts on a track teaches all these skills, faster, better, visually, less costly and intuitively.

I will admit parallel parking skills does give others insight into one's courtesy to other's by often one leaves a note from an errant bumper parking lot scrape/bump, and if they leave room for others to leave their space.

BTW, I am IMO an above average parallel parker. I also have driven Semis and trucks for over 5 decades for millions of miles and had only one accident (was rear ended) speaking of spatial awareness.

 

[j-c-c-62]

Adaptive Cruise.

I have it in my Grand Cherokee and love it. Perfect for when the knucklehead in front of you can't maintain a speed and you'd have to keep cancelling and resetting normal cruise - set it for 10mph over their speed and it'll simply pace them anywhere up to that +10 speed. Also nice on back roads when you're stuck behind a tourist/sightseer. All you have to do is steer. Will even do a complete stop at a sign or a light if there's someone stopping in front of you.

I used it recently and hated it. Found it would very gently slow me down as i approached another slower car/truck from pretty far back, and then I realized had it maintained speed I would have crept up on the slower car and be forced to move over and pass them, but with adaptive cruise, it lulled me into slowing down and just following them rather than passing from the get go.
It would allow a very nice welcoming following gap, that most of the time another car would pass and then occupy that gap, slowing me down again to regain a large safe gap.
Nice idea, that doesn't work well in real traffic IMO.

 

[Coelacanth]

There's a LOT that's not working with driver training these days...looking back to the 80's and 90's, I can't recall ever seeing this many examples of such horrendous driving habits. I have my politically incorrect opinions on why this is, and mass immigration in my country is certainly playing a big factor.

 

[RemCharger]

There's a LOT that's not working with driver training these days...looking back to the 80's and 90's, I can't recall ever seeing this many examples of such horrendous driving habits. I have my politically incorrect opinions on why this is, and mass immigration in my country is certainly playing a big factor.

Amen.

 

[Budnicks]

Cars park themselves, for the No Driven' Ivan millennials now
hybrids & EVs too