An end to bad, cranky drivers? | Cutting Edge - CNET News "While city drivers may see parallel parking as just another urban sport, for many people it's a "highly avoided and stress-inducing" situation that raises the heart rate. That's according to a nine-month study of driver habits recently completed by Ford Motor, the New England University Transportation Center (NEUTC), and the Center for Transportation and Logistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Not surprisingly, results released Thursday found that parallel parking while using a park-assist system (instead of having to guess your bumper distance based on your limited view) greatly reduces the stress of parallel parking in drivers."
As noted in the comments: This "article" was about Ford's vehicles with parking assist, and the "study" was sponsored by...... that's right... Ford.
It still might be valid, for those drivers who find parallel parking difficult and/or stressful. It won't mean an end to bad, cranky drivers: People will find something else to get cranky about. But it might reduce parking accidents by a few percent. And of course all the car makers will have something like this before long. Though I remember curb feelers, and a primitive and simple gadget that sounded the horn just as you were about to bump the car behind you. Together, they made parking easier. My three-legged clown car is REALLY easy to parallel park.
To be effective for me, a parallel parking assist system needs to be in the car behind me, and keep that driver off my rear end so that I can park. It's not a problem where I live, but in bigger cities I have experienced drivers who don't understand how parallel parking works, don't care, or are so distracted that they don't comprehend why I have stopped in front of a parking space with my turn signal flashing. Once they run up on my rear end, there is no choice but to abandon the parking space and move on. Tom
Or creep backward slowly, until you are just an inch from their bumper, in hopes that they will then back up and let you park. Or maybe roll down your window and signal with your hand for them to go around you. Or if you're driving a heap you could just go ahead and park: Once you smash into their front end they will back up. Jayman could get away with this more often than, for example, Tony.
I have been tempted, but the problem with city driving is by then someone is on their bumper, and the next car is on his bumper, and so forth, pretty much back to the edge of the world. You can't get them all to move. Tom
When no one was on their bumper, and they had plenty of obvious warning that I was going to parallel park, I have forced them to back up. Though it was light suburban traffic, not heavy city core traffic.
