I think a book about folks driver’s test stories would be a fun read. A prior gf had to take one, and I advised her several times to not take the tester’s bait & drive in the car pool lanes. She didn’t believe the dmv tester would do that. failed. 1 time for that and another failure the next attempt b/c on the written test she didn’t believe my claim she’d have to know the exact minimum distance allowed to clear a railroad crossing when parking. My sister failed b/c she ran into a telephone pole. One of my other relatives failed b/c he refused to make a u-turn at the specified location, told the tester he’d never do that b/c a u-turn at that spot is too unsafe.
I have to say it is indeed sort of puzzling why you’d need to know the exact footage required to clear a rail-road track. Common sense says to just not park anywhere near a railroad track.
The writer Bill Bryson tells a funny story about his citizenship test for the UK. He was perplexed why he needed to know the driving in-a-straight-line distance from one English southern town to another Scottish northern town in order to be a good citizen? He got the wrong answer, but later discovered it is impossible to drive that distance in a straight line b/c it goes over parts of the ocean.
Told this before but the high school where my wife parked our corvair was right across from the driver testing office. After school there was a note on the car that the girl being tested ran into it. She flunked the test. It was white and hard to see I guess.
I don’t have to parallel park much. But when I do I don’t mind it at all - I’m quite good at it, so, you know. It’s almost “fun” to exercise the skill.
back before I retired, part of the yearly driving test was parallel parking a fire truck…with only the side mirrors, wasn’t hard since I’d been driving them for years. still not hard in my car
Parallel parking was part of my driving test. I took it in my midsize Pontiac without power steering. Nailed on the first try. I could have used dad’s car with power steering but was a full size (big!) car and I was less used to it.
Spend 10 minutes at any busy boat launch. You may come to believe there should be a requirement to demonstrate trailer backing skills before you can legally register a boat or other trailered equipment…
It is not clear if Ford is dropping the self-parking completely or just the parallel parking. My wife’s car has this feature and we have hardly used it in 6 years. It does either parallel park or perpendicular.
I was working in northern New Jersey when the then national 55 mph speed limit was repealed. The speed limit on the new jersey turnpike was increased to 65mph. I continued making the 85 mile commute at 55. It was the speed i was comfortable with, i stayed in the right lane, and if it annoyed anyone, eff em.
In the right lane…no problem. That’s where it belongs (Though it can help make bottle necks when other drivers don’t know how to just pass and then get TF out of the way).
Drop much lower, though, and you’d better hit the hazard lights.
Always thought that feature would be handy on the big Ford pickups. Backup cameras must be a big help.
None of that fancy equipment on my venerable 99 Merc Grand Marquis but I rarely back in to a parking space.
IMO most of the backing problems for pickups are when exiting a driveway. The ability to see below the back of the pickup bed is very important. I have a fast back sedan with a high rear deck and the rear camera is important to see behind me. Since it has a wide angle view it provides a good view both left and right as well as immediately behind. I can’t see the driveway across the street from mine without the camera.
That 2018 p/up I was in for a couple months was a 4 door, 4x4 and I loved the back up camera in it, had driven cars before with one but never really used the camera, but with the bigger truck, it was nice, especially with bad arthritis in my neck and lower back, makes it very difficult to turn and look behind me to back up now…
My daughter has twin 11" rods in her back, and although she is an excellent driver, it is nearly impossible for her to turn around like most other people and she loves her back up camera in her little car…But even after 4+ years she still checks her mirrors cause she still doesn’t 100% trust it, just another tool to use when backing up…
