Advice please to help improve my car parking skills and confidence?

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I am a woman in my late 40s and I have never been good at parking cars. I think I’m an ok and safe driver but when it comes to parking I tense up and often muck it up. So I avoid tricky parking and it just gets worse and worse. Today I tried to park in a diagonal parking space on a local high street and I ended up over two lines and there was a lot of traffic so I couldn’t easily go forwards to try again and as I sat there waiting for the traffic to go past j felt more and more stressed and I ended up driving home without getting what I wanted. Feeling like a fool.

I’ve had a look at some YouTube videos but I’m not sure how I’ll remember the advice when it comes to the real world. But maybe I just need to treat it like revising for an exam.

I wondered if anyone had any advice to help me?

thank you.

Honestly, I would have a couple of lessons with an instructor. Just explain your issue and that you want to build your confidence with manoeuvres. It's really common, they'll help you and you'll be fine. It's a much better idea than trying to bodge it with self help videos.

You can ask local driving instructors for parking lessons. They will be happy to help, you are paying them for a service and you get real life tuition (better than YouTube!).

Don't be embarrassed to ask - that is literally their job! And you'll be in your own car where everything is familiar.

Good luck!

Practice in empty car parks. Retail parks early on a Sunday morning are good.

Agree, ask a driving instructor for a couple of lessons! My driving instructor came armed with coloured dots for the internals of my car so the instructor could say e.g. "line up he red dot with the wing mirror of that car and then turn the wheel" and then when the instructor wasn't in the car, the coloured dots were still there to line up. In any new car I automatically look for imaginary red dots now! 😆

I would practice in an empty car park… I used to be rubbish at parking, but I now work in a place with the tiniest car parking spaces ever and I’ve become a master at reverse parking!

Sympathy! Driving and parking can be stressful, you're not alone.
My advice is to go to a really quiet area at a quiet time and practice, practice, practice.

It just takes practice. But I’d get a lesson or ask a friend you know is good at it to help. We park on the street at my house and I was useless at parallel parking but my dad showed me what to line up with what, how close to be to the car in front etc and it really helped as I had a system rather than total guesswork. I still get easily flummoxed by tight supermarket style car parks but knowing your limits is important too, so then you don’t try for things you know you’ll end up in a mess with.

I'm going to sound really patronising here explaining what I do so I'm sorry if it comes across that way if you're already doing this OP

It sounds weird but I find reversing into spots a million times easier than driving in.

When you approach the entrance to the parking spot I point the front of the car to the space then swing out again. It gives me better visibility with my mirrors.

Terrible diagram added.

I'm in my late 50s, passed my test at 23 and must be a good driver as i have only ever 'crashed' in reverse gear at low speeds!!! And, not for years now.

My spatial awareness is not the best. And i doubt yours is, either. So, it really is practice.

Personally, i do not like parking sensors and put them off. And i don't attempt parallel parks into tight spots.

I can look out the back window and see where my car is going. I ALWAYS reverse into spots in a car park. This comes from driving a people carrier for many years.

It is much easier to reverse in between 2 cars and drive out forwards.

If you go in forwards, and someone parks close, it can be very hard to reverse out.

Reversing in is actually easier than going in forwards too. So there is one top tip.

I agree with the others though - get some parking lessons.

Thanks all. And I LOVE the diagram.

Maybe I do need some actual lessons. I think I was hoping to avoid that. And aren’t driving instructors hard to find at the moment. Or is that just tests.

This is what I do too, your diagram makes perfect sense to me!

You have to sign up 3/4 months in advance to get a driving instructor round my way (COVID backlog still).
I find it difficult too OP. I have a reverse parking camera but it’s made me worse as it’s very slightly off centre and messes up my brain!

Reverse parking works better as you move your fulcrum/steering from the front/front wheels to the rear/front and it improves your precision (That’s what I tell myself).

Find an empty carpark and just practice reversing. Not parking. Then practice curving a bit to get the hang of your hands steering in front of you while you are looking behind. Then you can practice proper reverse and parallel parking.

And at least one lesson with an instructor would be helpful.

^^ this OP

Practice in an empty car park. Or drive around when town is quiet and find different spots to park in. But 2 or 3 lessons with an instructor would sort it out. then practice. Honestly it's a game changer when you realise you can park pretty much anywhere.

I also think you should try an empty carpark. Like a cinema early in the morning.

Can you go back late tonight or super early in the morning and try again? Do it loads of times when there's no one around.

Just install cameras on the car. It's so much easier to park when you have a birdseye view of the car and the space (I don't know how it creates the view but it's magic)

Another vote for practising in a carpark when you're alone and not in a hurry. I have a very narrow garage and haven't had any disasters so I think the practice has definitely helped.
Parallel parking I still find takes me half an hour and I need a big space. But I did a perfect one first time recently and was so proud of myself! But I avoid them where possible.

I've been driving forever, I drive 400 miles a week, round the m25, I'm a confident driver, I don't find it stressful.
I live on a busy Victorian terrace with on street parallel parking. Can I get it...no I can't! I either find an end space or I park further up the road and walk now. I tell myself it's good exercise.

I will just add my parking improved massively when i got my bigger cars as i HAD to use wing mirrors

(My first car was a tiny Fiesta 1987 model and then i had a Golf 1989 model and i don't think i ever looked in the wing mirrors unless i was lane changing)

Wing mirrors are totally the best ones to look in. My first big cars didn't have a camera.

My current smax does have a camera but i cannot make head nor tail of what's on it!!! I don't use it at all.

Wing mirrors will tell you exactly how close you are to the neighboring cars.

You can also adjust your driver's side mirror to show the kerb if you are trying to align next to a kerb neatly.

When reversing in between 2 cars, you can see exactly what direction the back of the car is going by looking through the back window. And check both wings to guage distance from other cars.

But it is practice. I used to be a good parallel parker when i lived in the city. But now i am rubbish as i never do it.

But i can get into the last remaining spot in any car park. Even if it's so tight i can't get the doors open once in😂

I would say practice rather than finding an instructor. And watch some videos!

Manoeuvres were my Achilles heel learning to drive. Every instructor did it differently. Line this up with that and turn this far.... I could never do it that way. I finally got and instructor who taught me to basically look where I wanted to put the car and do it!

Mirrors and swinging out as per pp's diagram are the thing.

It's being in the right position in the first place I think.

When I was learning, my mother used to make me park and re-park the car over and over again in the local Tesco car park.

It really is just a question of practice. Parallel parking is easy too once you have enough practice. Maybe get a couple of lessons as suggested so that you learn the angles.

Practice and more practice.

I live in a one way street with parking on one side. Often only teensy spaces to squish your car into.

I used to have a large estate car and could park that on a postage stamp. I have a very small car now, but, when you've got traffic waiting behind you and you're trying not to panic, it's always going to end up a disaster!

I know my car much better now but, if I need to get in a tricky space and the traffic lights have changed at the top and cars are bumbling down, I drive round the block and then park in peace.

It is practice, though. Try and find somewhere quiet to get the hang of parallel parking and then don't be pressured irl when some arse is up your backside.

Yes, it absolutely is practice. I'm not very good at parallel parking and was just thinking the other day that I do it so seldom, I've got even worse at it. I need to take myself off somewhere quiet and do a few practice runs when no one is around to hound me or stress me out. And I say this as someone who is a good driver, has no problems with getting my car through narrow spaces etc. It's just parallel parking that's hard for me for some reason.

I don't know the science behind it but yes, in most instances, reverse parking is, counter-intuitively, easier. It irritates me in shopping centres or supermarket car parks because I'd far rather reverse in, but inevitably the spaces are too narrow so if you do, unloading the trolley into the boot is a nightmare so you have to park forwards most of the time.

A great way to practice reverse parking into a specific bay is to find a parking lot with pillars on a quiet day. You just want a pillar on one side - to be the car that you are navigating around. The first few times, you'll land up way too far away from the pillar at the end, and realise that as a result, if you'd tried to park with another car on the other side it would have been a disaster, but it gives you a useful guide to get closesr and closer to as you practice.