Mastered the Art of Parallel Parking
Moving to a bigger city posed a challenge of having to quickly learn how to parallel park on the busy streets.
December 01, 2009
I was born and raised in Florida—where you basically have to drive everywhere you want to go. Luckily, almost all my destinations had large lots where I could easily park my car.
Earlier this year, I made a huge change in my life and drove across country to live in Seattle, WA. The moment I entered the city, I found myself doing a crash course in parallel parking. This instantly scared the crap out of me! I never had to parallel park before. I don’t even think I needed to test for parallel parking when I got my license in Florida. Living in a big city like, Seattle, you have no choice but to be forced to learn how to squeeze your car in between two others all while impatient drivers wait for you to move out of their way.
For the first few months I had to basically try anything I could to get my car into those spaces. Obviously, I learned all the wrong ways to park before learning the right way. I had this idea that I needed to jump into it and learn from my mistakes as they came about. “Sometimes you gotta run before you can walk,” as Tony Stark would say.
I wanted to share with you the “methods” that I found some-what successful. These are by no means explaining the proper way to park, but to show you my sad attempts.
Double Space Round Up
The key here is to plan ahead and drive around until you see two open parking spots where you could easily sweep into one and position yourself into the other. This method involves having just as much luck as it does patience. You could even say this method is cheating mainly because it doesn’t require any skills at all. But for some reason, I get this odd feeling of accomplishment when I find two vacant parking spaces that are actually next to each other. It’s almost like fate brought me to this spot at this time and granted me a stress-free parking job. This type of parking doesn’t happen very often, but when it does you almost automatically say, “Oh, sweet!”
Over the Curb Drop Down
Excluding the high curb spots, this method only works if your car is able to drive over a low curb and plop itself into position. Due to the height of their tires, trucks and SUV’s would be the ideal vehicles for this method. I learned the hard way that any other vehicle (including my sadly curb-damaged Scion) could risk scraping the rim as it drives off the curb.
Jig Saw Cut-In
The technique here is to drive your car back and forth into the space—slowly inching your way closer to the curb. Of all three methods, this has to be the most embarrassing and pathetic way to parallel park. You are immediately labeled a “parallel parking newbie” the moment other drivers see what you are trying to do. That’s okay. It does work, but it might take a couple of minutes to reach your goal.
Great post! I really dig your Achievements. Also fantastic design for you new site.
@ M. Joshua and Miguel
Thanks for your kind words. I’m glad you dig the site.
This is me patting you on the back for a job well done you are now an experienced urban road warrior.
I almost always keep driving until I find a spot I can drive straight into. So lazy! Double space all the way yo!
I always drive around looking for easy spots, if I can’t find one I just go to big (and expensive) parking lots even if they are far from my destination.. writing this makes me feel stupid. Aw.
@ Iria
You are not alone in this so don’t feel stupid. You gotta face this challenge and conqueror that pavement beast 
Congratulations on tackling a daunting new skill! I must point out, though, that the “over the curb” method will also get you labeled as a newbie. The best, most efficient method (well, aside from the “double space round up”, that is) is to pull up next to the car in front of the space and then back into your parking space. Of course you do run the risk of an asocial cretin zipping in behind you over-the-curb-style…
This entire site looks great! Another daunting skill mastered 
Flawless
Or you could just learn ( if possible ) one of these.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QchftiD1g_M
You’ve a very neat and nice designed blog.
Cheers!
Gooooooooo Billy!!! Saw you on the “30 website Nav page”! Your sister and I are proud of you!!
You forgot the classic-yet-nearly-impossible 90 Degree Slide, mentioned in this NY Times article and a necessary move for any stunt driver.
Parallel parking is the norm in Brazil. You do it like this: http://i.imgur.com/TwOnB.jpg
In Indonesia parallel park is must be mastered after you earn driving license.
What we do is, drive forward until your vechicle in the same position as the car in front of the empty slot. And than move back, hard left, slowly backward. Turn the whells gradually while backward to make your car straight.
We don’t do bumper bump here, people will get mad at you if their car have scratc on it.
I’m also from Florida. Still living here (Orlando area). I used to visit Seattle during December. I loved it.
Parallel parking in Florida is minimal. Luckily I’ve mastered it. In fact, I always impress my wife and friends every time I do (yes, that’s me bragging).
When I took my driving test waaaaaay back in 88 (yikes!) they had a parallel parking test. I failed the test, but passed the rest of the course. I got my license even though I didn’t do well on the parallel parking.
Take care!
Can’t wait to read about the PROPER parking techniques. (As a fellow horrible parallel parker, I was hoping for some real tips in this post
Me either, I enjoy it keep it up buddy. Let us inspire with your works
I recently moved to the Seattle area too, from Indiana though. I was awesome at parallel parking during driver’s training back in the day, but after not doing it for so long I’ve completely forgotten how it’s done. Traffic in this area is so much worse in general from what I’m used to, so I just take the bus everywhere now and avoid it all.
Classy. I truly enjoy your achievements.