…of a person who took 12 minutes to park his/her car in a parking lot in Minneapolis.
If this person is so unacquainted with how to maneuver a car in this type of situation, I would hate to observe his/her driving skills and judgment in a situation where fast action is necessary in order to avoid a collision.
You might want to turn your speakers off if you don’t want to hear some obscenities from the observers who filmed it.
Note: I intended to post this in “general discussion”, but somehow it wound up in Repair & Maintenance.
I didn’t know I was being filmed. I insist on being an equal distance from each white line and perfect alignment. Now to the guys standing around filming this at $30 an hour-get back to work.
Great vdo OP. What’s most interesting to me – b/c I see this sort of thing all the time here in San Jose and will never understand it – is that at the very beginning, around 6 second mark, there’s two very easy to park spaces right in front of driver. They could have just pulled straight in to either of those. For some reason , and this is indeed a mystery, they chose to park in one of the most difficult to park spaces instead. And if for some reason they insisted to park on that row, why not park on the last space in the row? There’s lots of space to maneuver there. Instead they decide to pull into a spot just before that last one, between two very closely spaced cars. Like I say, I see this unusual parking behavior all the time, and I keep thinking there must be some reason these drivers go to all that trouble to park in that particular space when there is a much easier spot just a few feet away, but I’ve never figured it out yet.
I was sitting with a neighbor birdwatching the other day and we watched another (unpopular) neighbor try to back a small trailer attached to a Chevy crew cab pickup into his garage. He tried 16 times, ultimately turning the truck and trailer totally around and blocking the road (and a poor guy trying to drive up in) for 10 minutes in the process before he finally gave up. I’ve watched him more than once before, and it’s truly hysterical to see. He has no clue how to do it. He really needs a trailer dolly. Or lessons.
I think it must have been a driver training session, there was no reason to leave that spot and try to back in.
A few years ago I waited and watched for 5 minutes while a women from our sales department moved a car back and forth in an effort to park next to the company gas pump. She drove as though she had jack-knifed an invisible trailer, there was plenty of room to back up and pull right in.
I used to be pretty good backing a trailer when I could see the thing, but I’ll confess a couple times in a tight hotel parking lot, just unhooking the camper to get it parked.
A little far fetched but I’m a little Leary of people that insist on a particular parking stall after the story my dental receptionist relayed. At the mall a guy trapped her between two cars and proceeded to disrobe. Unknown to him she has a CCP and pulled her glock out. He fled and she chased him and got his plate number. When the police investigated they said there were three brothers that looked identical and it would be impossible to determine which one it was. Of course he didn’t soil his pants since they were already off. And this is a small, safe, town but we do have some recent arrivals that haven’t mastered the American culture yet.
My wife watched a 40-something guy in a Mercedes E class try to parallel park downtown while she was collecting her notes for a meeting. He tried for 5 minutes to park and gave up. The marked parallel spaces are huge by comparison to this video. A full size SUV can fit easily, I’ve parked mine with no problems.
I must admire this drivers persistence but it’s painful for me to watch!
I work with someone who’s almost as bad. I try very hard to arrive after she does so that I’m guaranteed she won’t be doing that next to my car. It’s a miracle she isn’t in at least one wreck every day.
I Can’t Download The Video, But I Can Still Comment Based On Others’ Observations. This Sounds Like A Situation That Endorses Self-Driving Cars.
I remember hearing from one advocate of those automated vehicles that if you’ve ever ridden in a NYC cab (I never have.) then you’d prefer the new technology.
Along those lines, it seems like, regardless of any shortcomings, a self-driving car would be an improvement over what is exhibited in the video of this human-driven car. CSA
My understanding of the video is that it’s from a security camera and is totally spontaneous… but so funny it was kept for laughs.
When my daughter was learning to drive, she couldn’t learn to parallel park, a skill that she’d need for the test. I bought three toy cars, one remotely steerable, and used those and a stick of wood to show her how vehicles track when you steer, as well as to illustrate to her the most common errors. We went out on the road and she “nailed it” the first time. I think the person in the posted video needs some toy cars.
Teaching my second daughter to drive, I’d often repeat
’’ steer the rear wheels. think of where the rear wheels will be and need to be.’'
At not even five feet tall she likes to drive the Expedition better that the escape.
My wife still can’t logic the rear wheels concept, just like the videos.
just the other day in a mall parking lot ;
We’re on the right side of the aisle and so is the parking space, like the video.
She points out the parking space available there and I drive a tad beyond to beging a reversing left arc to align a correct right arc into the space.
She gasps and reiterates ‘‘right there !’’ as if I was missing the space. . . only to cock her head in amazement as I cleanly anlge in after making that reverse maneuver to line up the REAR wheels’ position.
My shop guys must do that reversing arc maneuver every single day to line up a vehicle for their hoists. . . but she’s never here to see that.
I always back into not only my garage but parking spaces. I’ve always felt it was safer. I started this decades ago when my kids were little because I felt it was safer. I still feel that way. It would be impossible to count the number of times I’ve seen people almost get backed over in parking lots by cars… especially SUVs… backing out of parking spots. I’ve had to bang the back of a few SUVs myself to keep from getting run over.
^
I search parking lots for spaces where I can “front in” to a space, and then drive straight out. This is safer in all respects, both for me and for pedestrians and other vehicles.
Obviously, the person in that video doesn’t share the same opinion, as he/she bypassed at least 2 spaces where it was possible to “front in/front out”, as well as other spaces that would have been no more difficult–and perhaps a bit easier–to drive into than the one that he/she was fixated upon.
A friend of mine who looked at the video is of the belief that this person in the video may suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), as he/she just HAD to park in that particular space.
However, I think that the person in the video has problems that go beyond OCD, simply because the car was already parked in a decent manner on two occasions, only to be removed from the space for more tries that eventually resulted in a crooked placement of the vehicle.
Well I didn’t realize that was Cedar-Riverside, but if it is, it is understandable. There are many people in the area who have never driven before and very cautious and aren’t very familiar with our driving customs and laws. We have them here too and it is frustrating to get behind them and can sit at a stop sign for quite a while not sure what to do. If that’s a security camera, its unusual that it has sound.
