You never have to look very far in this country of ours to find examples of both good and bad parking, but would you be prepared to get a bit moralistic about it, I wonder, and be prepared to call them right or wrong?
I think perhaps it’s time. Cars are getting bigger, yet parking bays don’t seem to be. Car parks are getting busier, so you’re less likely to find banks of empty bays.
It’s more and more likely to matter, in short, if you park well.
And cars themselves are actually getting less forgiving of bad parking habits. As a departure point, we must all agree, surely, that the path of the righteous is backwards.
Indeed, at our regular testing haunt, Horiba MIRA proving ground, you will find car parks replete with signs reminding you to reverse park.
Why? For one thing, if you reverse, your steered axle is at the right end of the car to help you finish up in the middle of the bay, with a car positioned and aligned just right to give you room to open the doors.
You’re actually less likely to need a second or third bite at the cherry. More importantly, when subsequently leaving the bay, you can see where you’re going much better, so you’re also a lot less likely to cause a collision. It’s bulletproof logic.
There are places where you may prefer to park nose-in for access to the boot: the supermarket, the recycling centre, that flatpack furniture place.
Also, some cars actually oblige you to park forwards: EVs with charging ports on the front, for instance (the Kia PV5 is one of them).
Fair enough on both scores; I’m prepared to admit a few exceptions. Even so, how many cars do you see abandoned at an incriminating angle, having been driven into a space and left too close to the margins of it, or overhanging the corner of the adjacent one? Why?
Because its driver was hungry, or late, or in a rush, out of ‘vape’, desperate for the loo etc.
Actually, I doubt that. I think they just didn’t care. And when they get back and, after someone has parked perfectly properly next door, find it difficult to get their driver’s door open, do you think they care then? Realise? Repent? Nope.
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