A Word About Parallel Parking

Yesterday, I went to pick up my daughter from kindergarten. Her school is on a main road and has no parking lot, so parallel parking is unavoidable. It can be hard to find a spot when lots of parents are parked there, so I try to arrive as late as possible—but even then, I still have to parallel park.

Parallel parking a large car like the Panamera is no easy feat.

There’s a paid parking lot nearby, but it costs 200 yen for 30 minutes. Parking there every day would add up to about 5,000 yen a month—or 60,000 yen a year. I’m not keen on spending that much just to pick up my daughter, so parallel parking it is.

Yesterday, there was just one spot available. I checked behind me, saw no cars coming, and backed in at a fairly sharp angle. I got it in on the first try.

Phew. What a relief… ε-(´∀｀*)

As I got out and walked up the steps to the entrance, the teachers smiled, applauded, and said:

“That was some parallel parking! It’s amazing how you squeezed such a big car in so neatly!”

Wait… seriously? (￣ー￣)！？

I said, “Oh, it was nothing,” but I couldn’t hide how pleased I was—I was grinning like an idiot. That got me thinking about parallel parking, so I looked up some “parallel parking tips” online. A lot of the articles I found, though, didn’t quite sit right with me.

The Usual Parallel Parking Instructions

Here’s the kind of advice I found in one article:

Check that there’s enough room to parallel park (about 1.5 times the length of your car). Stop alongside the car in front, slightly ahead of it and about one meter away. When your rear bumper is level with the other car’s, stop, then turn the steering wheel all the way to the left…

…Hold on—you’re going to get rear-ended by the car behind you.

That might work for a parallel-parking test at driving school. On a quiet country road, you could take your time and think, “Okay, first I’ll check whether there’s 1.5 times my car’s length… then…” (Though if there’s that much room, you can probably park anywhere, so there’s no need to overthink it.)

When you need to parallel park, the road is often busy and the available space is tight. If you suddenly stop and take your time on a road like that, you’ll either get rear-ended or have someone lean on their horn like there’s no tomorrow. Then you’ll panic, steer the wrong way, and scrape your car.

More than anything, what bothered me about those articles was how many of them simply taught people to memorize a set of steps.

Advice like “turn the wheel all the way left when you can see the driver’s seat beside you” or “check the edge in your side mirror, then do this” is like cramming facts for an exam: you might remember the steps, but you won’t know what to do when the situation changes. The right approach depends on the size of your car and how much space you have.

The basics matter, but memorizing steps without understanding them doesn’t help— and could even be dangerous.

So, here’s how I think about parallel parking.

Three Tips for Parallel Parking

1　Avoid Parallel Parking Whenever Possible

This is the most important point. It’s wise to avoid tricky parking situations where you might get hit or scrape your car whenever you can.

2　Pull In and Stop Temporarily

Trying to park in one smooth move can make you panic when there’s a car behind you. It’s fine to leave plenty of space on your left at first: pull over a little, put on your hazard lights, and stop. The driver behind you might be thinking, “Move over already!”—so just say, “Sorry about that.” (Even though they can’t hear you.) The first thing is to get the car stopped in a temporary position.

3　Wait Until the Road Behind You Is Clear, Then Reposition

If you let the cars behind you go by for a while, there may be a break in traffic when the lights change. Check your rearview mirror to make sure there’s no one coming for 200 meters, then pull forward and reposition at an angle. With no cars behind you, you’ll have more time to maneuver, so you can follow the basic parallel-parking instructions you find online.

That’s just my personal take, of course…

But more than anything, it’s best to avoid parallel parking whenever you can.