You guys were way off with your “help” for Ed who couldn’t pull his 2000 9-5 straight into a parking space.
The 9-5 has a great turning radius, and excellent visibility.
It has a smaller turning radius than a Taurus, Impala, Maxima, S60, Corvette, Ford Fusion, Grand Prix, G6, Mazda6, Magnum, etc.
The caller simply can’t park. No excuses please.
Ed sounds a bit on the elderly side, so maybe that could explain his difficulties.
He said his wife had cautioned him about trying to use the top of the door as a straightedge to try to align with the next car, so it sounds like he has poor spatial abilities.
Ray’s suggestion not to turn tightly into the parking space was a good one – use a plenty long approach to give time and space to correct. I would further suggest not trying to align on close-up objects (next car, pavement stripe on driver side), but to do as airplane pilots do when landing: watch the far end of the runway (look at the stripes not of the slot he’s entering, but of the next slot across the divider line).
Ed sounds a bit on the elderly side, so maybe that could explain his difficulties.
If so, his difficulty parking may be a small symptom of a more serious underlying problem.
The bodies on the new cars are so strange that you have a hard time knowing if you are driving straight or not. I’d rather park a van.
Come on guys! What does the cars bodyshape has to do with driving or parking straight?
If you use your side mirrors to align your car when backing into a parking space, getting it straight should not be a problem.
And as for driving forward, if you can’t keep your car straight and blame it on the shape of the body, you should probably not have a drivers license…
This is why people shouldn’t be allowed to back into parking spaces.
Yeah, I really didn’t understand the straightedge thing.
The 9-5 does have the bottom of the side windows rise up 2-3 inches from the front to the rear, but how are you using that to help you pull straight into a parking space?
This is why people shouldn’t be allowed to back into parking spaces.
People who can’t back into parking spaces shouldn’t be allowed to drive.
From what it sounds like, this gentleman could neither back or drive into his parking space straight.
The first thing I thought of hearing Ed’s call were old Nova’s. Circa the late 1960’s through early 1970’s. The body/frame alignment could get so bad the car could be driving down the street at an angle that was NOT parallel with the lines on the road. Although I’m pretty sure Ed’s car is a unibody (no frame) could the alignment be so out of whack what appears to be straight (form ed’s driing position) is really at an angle to the lines parallel to Ed’s Saab?
This cured my crooked parking - As I am turning to park, I say to myself “Turn Left, Pull Right” or “Turn Right, Pull Left”. It works!
My car doesn’t have a single usable straightedge. Typical Detriot styling has everything curved, slanting, or tapered.
How do you line your car up to back into a space, when the aisle is narrow, and the spaces are at a right angle? None of the points you really have to see are visible, either directly, or in a mirror. And it is worse if the driver is short.
What do you have, a Suzuki X-90???
Or maybe you don’t have a city that demands a 50 percent green space on any new development (so the developers squeeze as many parking spaces into the allowed lot as they can.
What do you do if your turning radius is wider than the aisle? I have to do a three-point turn just to HEAD into the space in some lots, and another to get out of it.
Also, they put the rear wheels of a van farther back than they do on a car. That makes the front swing farther in the opposite direction when you back in.