Please please tell me how you parallel park!

[mollibu]

Hi all.

Could you please share your secrets of how you parallel park??

I just cannot get the hang of it and I'm tempted to find a driving instructor just to have a few lessons on parallel park!!

Please help hahah. Thanks xxx

Its all about using your mirrors and starting further forward than you think you should.

Does this help?

Practise! Where I live I always have to parallel park in tiny spaces (normally with someone shouting at me to get a move on). It has honed my parking skills no end!

I am the queen of parallel parking - I live in a seaside town with lots of visitors so need to squeeze into tiny spaces near my house

What I do is -

1. Start further up the car in front than you think you should, in line with their front side window
2. Reverse and out to the side until you can see the car behind through the little triangle Windows at the back of your car
3. Go back straight a bit
4. Negotiate a bit forwards / side until you're in place (this is hard to describe but is the easy bit).

Pull up parallel to the car, maybe a foot apart. Reverse until you are in line with the front seat of the other car. Turn the wheel 3/4 of a turn. Reverse until if you turn your head over your right shoulder you are inline with the car behinds front driver headlight. Straighten the wheel, once your bonnet is past the car in fronts boot put your wheel on lock to bring your 'nose in'.
Boom.
If you have to bring yourself in a bit after these steps, only move the wheel when you are going in one direction. So drive straight forward and then use the wheel to go backwards jaunty. Otherwise you'll just go back and forward over the same ground.
Learnt these tips 23 year ago. Use them everyday.

This!

Try and try and try again and then give up in embarrassed frustration.

That's how I do it.

Really fucking badly

This trick was given to me by my driving instructor many moons ago:
Place the car paralell to the space
Reverse until you can see the car parked in front in line with the middle of your back window
Turn the wheel completely to one side
Once you can see the car in front in line with the middle of your front window, turn the wheel to the other side.
Adjust.

Over the years I've perfected it

I've been driving for 7 years...still can't master it. Sometimes I nail it, sometimes i can't get into a space that would take a lorry.

I also can't reverse park at all...I have to drive forwards into a bay. But THAT I have down to a T. Dh is always saying I should practice reversing in but why, when driving into it and reversing out works just fine?

Years and years of living in London with limited parking is the best way to learn..!

I think this way is pretty foolproof...
line up as close as I can to the car in front, then start reversing while looking in my rear view mirror
You MUST keep turning the wheel in until the whole width of the car behind is visable in your rear view mirror
You might feel like you are at too sharp an angle but you won't be

Then start straightening up and voila, you should be in the space...

What bigkidsdidit said.

Pull up next to the car in front, reverse back half the cars length, turn your wheel 3/4 of the way to the side you are parking, reverse in them swing your wheel 3/4 other ways to get your nose in and reverse a little- hey presto you are in!

Practice is the difference, I used to live & work in a seaside town too and I'm lazy so learnt to get into tiny spaces so I didn't have so far to walk.

Try some of the suggestions here in a nice wide road, parking behind a single car stopped at the side of the road, so not into a space, if that makes sense?

I've been driving for 25 years now

The last time I did a parallel park was during my driving test, so it's a NO from me

Some brilliant tips here. Practice is the answer. Most of useable a better side, I find parallel parking to my left easier than the right.

Parking sensors help.

My driving instructor taught me by sticking a bit of blu tac on the rear quarter light window. When it was level with the bumper of the other car, full lock and in you go. Straighten as you get bumper clearance at the front. Obviously I don't need the blu tac now.

Maybe try the blu tac thing? That was 25 years ago. I've always been great at parallel parking. I've even impressed my dads best mate by parking for him. He was faffing on and I said get out and let me show you my skills. He still has the piss taken out of him at the pub

The last time I attempted to parallel park I bumped a wall

Stupidly I was taking direction from my inebriated brother in the passenger seat.

I really need to learn this. Or buy a smaller car, I've got a tank

Get toy cars, and practice, so you can visualise how much steering there is. (More than you think.)

Last time I parallel parked was before my test a year ago. Then it was on a very quiet residential street behind one car, rather than between two.

I don't parallel park as I am scared of scraping my car, passenger side, against the car parked in front, given on modern cars you can't usually see the bonnet, how do you judge that you're close but not too close?

My instructor showed me using toy cars, it's surprisingly helpful!
His other tips were to learn where your car wheels line up with something on the interior of your car - usually the quarter-lights. You reverse back straight until your front wheels are lined up with the rear wheels of the car in front of the space, then turn in.

Thanks everyone for the replies! I'm going to practice some of them this afternoon. I live in London which makes it even worse as most places are parallel park

You know there's nothing wrong with booking one lesson with an instructor just for parking!

I find the main thing is not to be tired and hormonal. Then it's easy. Otherwise it's a disaster.

What sparechange said.... other methods only work for spaces around twice the length of the car....