Education on parking

thelad95

I'm of the opinion that there's a serious lack of parking education in the current EDT lessons and none of the test examines your competency at parking. I've just passed my test and for the life of me I've no idea how to park either parallel or perpendicular and it's become quite stressful especially in busy car parks trying to find a space I can just drive into instead of attempting a tricky manoeuvre.

Is this something that needs to be changed? As far as I'm aware, in England you have to do one parking manoeuvre and I think that needs to be added to the Irish test as well.

Squidgy Black

Best way I've found to parallel park us to pull up along side the car in front, parallel or as close as possible and then slowly reverse in towards the path until you get close to the curb and then start straightening up.

But yeah it should definitely be something added to the syllabus, crazy the way the reverse around the corner which you'll probably never use is there but a practical skill isn't.

I agree OP! I didn't find the learning to drive very difficult, it was the learning to park. I did a bit of parallel parking with my instructor as I needed to learn how to do it. However, I do not think it helped very much as I found that I wasn't confident enough to do it without the instructor in the car.

Haven't done my test yet, will be doing it at the end of January. Would be delighted if they added parking to it. I know some people would hate it. But it's something that needs to be taught! Also motorway driving, but that's for another thread..

I live in Cork city centre and have on street parking with no dedicated space, so need to parallel park almost every day. Both my sponsors (my Mother and my friend from work) are not able to parallel park so they could not show me how. They both did the Irish driving test so were never taught how! My brother is excellent at parking, however he had no patience to teach me. I just ended up watching lots of Youtube videos and practising between traffic cones in car parks I even had the steps written down on paper and put into my car incase I forgot how :o

I'm grand at parallel parking now. The other night I managed to get into a very small space in the dark during that storm and couldn't really see very much. Was very proud of myself. It's all about confidence really once you know the technique, and that comes with practise. Still fairly bad at reverse parking into bays. In my Mother's house the driveway is very hard to reverse into. You must avoid a fence, my Mother's car, a wall right in front of you with no space to straighten up, and it's also raised so you can't reverse very slowly onto it.

Here is a video that explains parallel parking:

.
This written explanation is also kind of good: How to There is a proper way to do it alright. I find those "tips" that say to look at the number plate in your mirror etc just overcomplicates things. As _Tyrrell_ said,when your close to the curb straighten up.

thesimpsons

_Tyrrell_ wrote: »

Best way I've found to parallel park us to pull up along side the car in front, parallel or as close as possible and then slowly reverse in towards the path until you get close to the curb and then start straightening up.

But yeah it should definitely be something added to the syllabus, crazy the way the reverse around the corner which you'll probably never use is there but a practical skill isn't.

reversing around a corner correctly uses all the skills needed to parallel park.
to practice parallel parking, find a very quiet road or carpark and do it time and time again. place some traffic cones strategically to help you. also, if you have passed your test and still can't park, go back to your driving school/teacher, and ask for help.

MascotDec85

Lia_lia wrote: »

I agree OP! I didn't find the learning to drive very difficult, it was the learning to park. I did a bit of parallel parking with my instructor as I needed to learn how to do it. However, I do not think it helped very much as I found that I wasn't confident enough to do it without the instructor in the car.

Haven't done my test yet, will be doing it at the end of January. Would be delighted if they added parking to it. I know some people would hate it. But it's something that needs to be taught! Also motorway driving, but that's for another thread..

I live in Cork city centre and have on street parking with no dedicated space, so need to parallel park almost every day. Both my sponsors (my Mother and my friend from work) are not able to parallel park so they could not show me how. They both did the Irish driving test so were never taught how! My brother is excellent at parking, however he had no patience to teach me. I just ended up watching lots of Youtube videos and practising between traffic cones in car parks I even had the steps written down on paper and put into my car incase I forgot how :o

I'm grand at parallel parking now. The other night I managed to get into a very small space in the dark during that storm and couldn't really see very much. Was very proud of myself. It's all about confidence really once you know the technique, and that comes with practise. Still fairly bad at reverse parking into bays. In my Mother's house the driveway is very hard to reverse into. You must avoid a fence, my Mother's car, a wall right in front of you with no space to straighten up, and it's also raised so you can't reverse very slowly onto it.

Here is a video that explains parallel parking:

.
This written explanation is also kind of good: How to There is a proper way to do it alright. I find those "tips" that say to look at the number plate in your mirror etc just overcomplicates things. As _Tyrrell_ said,when your close to the curb straighten up.

That video is all well and good and goes some way to explaining it. What if your car doesn't have a small triangular window?