The two ways I was taught was inverted steering wheel and full lock.
I can’t remember which is which, but I would assume with Full Lock, you line your car about a third of the way with the car in front, stop, turn your steering wheel as far as it will go (full lock) and then begin backing in.
The other way was you line further up, like side-mirror to side-mirror, stop, and you turn the steering wheel until it’s inverted. Not full lock. And then you begin backing in.
FWIW, both of these approaches make assumptions about the turning radius of the vehicle you’re driving and the relative lengths of the two cars that do not hold in full generality. They also differ in whether they’re trying to make things fast and easy, or help you fit into tight spots. Go ahead and try to find a spot big enough to use the inverted steering wheel method in NYC, or to make people behind you wait while you do full lock in a less crowded region. It’s not clear that there is one “best” method for all situations, but many teachers pretend there is because they really just want their students to pass their driving tests, at which point it is no longer their problem.
IIRC when I was learning I had 1 person explain to me that “about a third of the way” really meant “until the pillar between the passenger side windows aligns with the back of the car in front,” so that your rear wheels are far enough back to guarantee that a full lock won’t cause the front of your car to hit the back of theirs when you reverse to the opposite full lock later. They also explained that no one actually expects you to do it that way in real life, most of the time: It’s a baseline and a guideline to help build intuition for how your car moves, and it theoretically minimizes the distance-to-curb you can achieve in any given size of spot (though the exact alignment needed for perfection does vary).
Edit to add: I’m curious if anyone has studied what methods autonomous vehicles use to parallel park, and how those compare to these standard teaching methods. I found this paper on the minimum parking size an automatic parallel parking system should need as a function of vehicle size and turning radius, but IDK if anyone has tried to map that to how humans learn.
I have only glanced at that paper, but it is an interesting read and the notion that it chiefly is about the space required kind of makes me reconsider my expectations of how easily this tactic could be compressed to a convergent one: maybe it just is that damn complex and comprised of so many sub-skills based on the different environments, lengths of car, and even traffic conditions.
They also explained that no one actually expects you to do it that way in real life,
My driving instructor, pointing to a space I was going to practice on stated that after I pass—I’d simply go in head-first, but that this was something that had to be mastered for the test.
My driving instructor, pointing to a space I was going to practice on stated that after I pass—I’d simply go in head-first, but that this was something that had to be mastered for the test.
This sounds like it assumes you’ll never have to pull into a space less than a few cars lengths long. In other words, it assumes a context where the skill doesn’t actually matter, and you don’t need to be better at it than the bare minimum. There’s no selection pressure there to converge on an optimal teaching method even if there is one.
FWIW, the official standard length of a parallel parking spot is something like 23 ft, and most passenger cars need about 1.5 car lengths of space to parallel park (though that includes however much of the spaces in front and behind happen to be available).
This sounds like it assumes you’ll never have to pull into a space less than a few cars lengths long. In other words, it assumes a context where the skill doesn’t actually matter, and you don’t need to be better at it than the bare minimum.
That would be my implication not his. He wasn’t saying no one ever needs to parallel park, only that he was nominating that space as a opportunity for me to practice reversing in even though I’d likely go head first in.
Honestly I don’t know.
There’s no selection pressure there to converge on an optimal teaching method even if there is one.
I mean it’s still universal in tests, which even if it’s a pointless exercise, means there is SOME selection pressure.
What are these two ways? Googling turns up only one (variously explained).
The two ways I was taught was inverted steering wheel and full lock.
I can’t remember which is which, but I would assume with Full Lock, you line your car about a third of the way with the car in front, stop, turn your steering wheel as far as it will go (full lock) and then begin backing in.
The other way was you line further up, like side-mirror to side-mirror, stop, and you turn the steering wheel until it’s inverted. Not full lock. And then you begin backing in.
FWIW, both of these approaches make assumptions about the turning radius of the vehicle you’re driving and the relative lengths of the two cars that do not hold in full generality. They also differ in whether they’re trying to make things fast and easy, or help you fit into tight spots. Go ahead and try to find a spot big enough to use the inverted steering wheel method in NYC, or to make people behind you wait while you do full lock in a less crowded region. It’s not clear that there is one “best” method for all situations, but many teachers pretend there is because they really just want their students to pass their driving tests, at which point it is no longer their problem.
IIRC when I was learning I had 1 person explain to me that “about a third of the way” really meant “until the pillar between the passenger side windows aligns with the back of the car in front,” so that your rear wheels are far enough back to guarantee that a full lock won’t cause the front of your car to hit the back of theirs when you reverse to the opposite full lock later. They also explained that no one actually expects you to do it that way in real life, most of the time: It’s a baseline and a guideline to help build intuition for how your car moves, and it theoretically minimizes the distance-to-curb you can achieve in any given size of spot (though the exact alignment needed for perfection does vary).
Edit to add: I’m curious if anyone has studied what methods autonomous vehicles use to parallel park, and how those compare to these standard teaching methods. I found this paper on the minimum parking size an automatic parallel parking system should need as a function of vehicle size and turning radius, but IDK if anyone has tried to map that to how humans learn.
I have only glanced at that paper, but it is an interesting read and the notion that it chiefly is about the space required kind of makes me reconsider my expectations of how easily this tactic could be compressed to a convergent one: maybe it just is that damn complex and comprised of so many sub-skills based on the different environments, lengths of car, and even traffic conditions.
My driving instructor, pointing to a space I was going to practice on stated that after I pass—I’d simply go in head-first, but that this was something that had to be mastered for the test.
This sounds like it assumes you’ll never have to pull into a space less than a few cars lengths long. In other words, it assumes a context where the skill doesn’t actually matter, and you don’t need to be better at it than the bare minimum. There’s no selection pressure there to converge on an optimal teaching method even if there is one.
FWIW, the official standard length of a parallel parking spot is something like 23 ft, and most passenger cars need about 1.5 car lengths of space to parallel park (though that includes however much of the spaces in front and behind happen to be available).
That would be my implication not his. He wasn’t saying no one ever needs to parallel park, only that he was nominating that space as a opportunity for me to practice reversing in even though I’d likely go head first in.
Honestly I don’t know.
I mean it’s still universal in tests, which even if it’s a pointless exercise, means there is SOME selection pressure.