E brake? I don’t think I had one in my Morris. Even so the car would grind in first and pop out unless I held it. So taking three girls home after work and had to stop on the hill across from the sheriffs office. With the extra weight and bad gear, everything I could do to get started again on the hill. They cheered me on though.
Flag me if you dare. And I hope no one was blank enough to flag the professor. I see he deleted his post. He always has interesting comments.
My high school driver’s ed class used Plymouth Reliants but I took the DMV test in dad’s Caprice, and parallel parked just fine. Of course I learned to drive when I was 10 and was double clutching an F600 by 13. 
I’d driven on our private road ar max 15mph at 14, driving the lawn tractor for laps around the property by that point. Used a small local school for drivers ed in a 1991 Ford Escort same bones as our Mazda protige. Instructor turned out to be an old friend of our pastor, lessons were 1 9n 1 with the group class once a week. Got an extended lesson to make up for one he’d missed and pointed out the church as we drove past.
Test in the 88 Grand Voyager which was big enough for the parallel parking in front of the office with dad watching. At least by then dad’s office no longer was in the building across a parking lot, my brother had an audience with bets being made. Passed on the first try even though we’d had the van stall 30min before the test while going round the loop road. Wiring rubbing against the engine on right turns.
Mom learned in the farm truck, a early 60sFord with a narrow bridge over the creek woth railroad ties as the edge, put the right side wheels on the edge for a moment and her normally docile mother turned to her and said “do not do that ever again” Her test after college was in Dad’s VW bug parking on the steepest hill in town. About 1969
I took my drivers ed class with a HUGE 1970 Chevy station wagon. The teacher felt that if you could drive that thing, you could drive anything. I also had my driver’s license before I took drivers ed. I just took drivers ed to reduce my (actually parents) insurance.
Hadn’t thought about until now, but after asking my wife who got her DL at age 16 in TN as well as my son (got his in 2004) and another known person who just took the DL test last Thursday, parallel parking is not a part of the driving test… I don’t remember what all the driving test consisted of when I took mine… And yes I can parallel park, just parallel parked my truck last week when I was out and about…
It is funny though watching people trying to parallel park big SUV’s when they don’t really know how, part of our parking was parallel spaces at the downtown Nashville shop, and I would get a kick out of watching, sometimes they would give up and come in and hand us the keys and say, you might want to repark it… lol
Then, you have the phenomenon of people trying to park their 3-row SUV in a space that might not be big enough to accommodate an Elantra. Meanwhile, everyone has to wait while that person–who clearly has no concept of the size of his/her vehicle–makes multiple attempts before finally giving up.
But it can be so dang entertaining… 
We had to go out and direct traffic sometimes, or just park it for them…
If I absolutely have to, I can do a fair job of parking. But when I was a teen, I was quite good at it. Parallel parking was common in the neighborhood I grew up in.
We practiced parking in a 64 ford and I took my test in a 61/mercury. I never had a problem parking until recently. You can’t turn around and see where you are backing anymore. The seat designs and head rests block your view. Even with a rear camera it is not easy. Now I used to be able to back a trailer and a camper no problem but since I traded, can’t see the trailer anymore. Don’t know where it is until it shows up in the side mirrors. The kid next door though does a perfect job with his pick up truck. Must be the cameras or something. Maybe I need to go back to school.
I got real good at parallel parking living Syracuse NY after college. Don’t do it too often, but the few occasions I had to I still remembered how. The skill only comes in handy in cities.
The first car I had with a rear view camera was in Japan on a business trip. I thought they were unnecessary, but after I learned how to use it, I was sold. The gravel parking lot was crowded and the spots late at night were the most difficult to pull into or out of. One spot usually open was easy to pull into but I couldn’t back out unless I backed all the way to the front of the hotel. Big pain. OTOH, if I turned right then backed it, I could drive out easily in the morning. Getting into that spot was a snap with the camera.
Some vehicles were briefly equipped with those backup beepers. Trucks had them for years. I haven’t seen (actually heard) one in years.
+1
The wide-angle view in the monitor–coupled with the cross-traffic alert–makes it MUCH safer to back out of parking slot, especially when you consider that many drivers ignore the sight of a vehicle backing up, even if it is already several feet into the path of travel.
If you walk near an EV or a PHEV (possibly also a hybrid), you should hear the Acoustic Vehicle Alerting System. The actual sound varies from one make to another, and it is supposed to be louder when the vehicle is put into reverse. All of this is to alert visually-impaired pedestrians.
When driving forward, the sound ceases at a fairly low speed, but this may also vary from one make to another. With my PHEV the sound ceases at–I think–22 mph, and it is best described as a “hum”, but some folks say it’s a “space ship sound”.
I think I know who you have in mind, but the narrator mentions city driving, not highway, so “slow rider” can stuff it.
When I took Drivers Ed we were informed of the “Basic Speed Limit”: The basic speed law requires drivers to operate vehicles at a safe speed for current conditions (weather, traffic, road quality), regardless of the posted limit. It dictates that you must not drive faster than what is safe, effectively making safety conditions take precedence over posted maximum speeds.
I don’t know if all states have that or not. Of course the safe limit is highly subjective. With my vehicles and their conditions and tires I can safely drive at higher speeds than some other vehicles. Just for example, I might drop to 5 MPH under the limit when other are at 15 under.
Dave- they had them in 1936.
The Studebaker “Hill Holder” was a pioneering driver-assistance feature introduced in 1936 that automatically locked the brakes while on an incline, preventing a manual-transmission car from rolling backward. It engaged when the clutch and brake were depressed simultaneously, holding hydraulic brake pressure until the clutch was released, allowing for easy uphill starts.