![photo[1]](https://carseatblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/photo1.jpg)
A couple times now, I’ve mentioned that I’m not very good at parking. That might be an understatement. I’m really bad at it.
Regular parking spaces, angled parking spaces, parallel parking, even spaces that simply require me to pull straight ahead…I always wind up lopsided or over the lines. I’m a great driver, but when it comes to low speed maneuvering, apparently I have some kind of deficiency.
But the other day, I hit a new low. Literally.
I drove into Chicago to meet someone for lunch. There were street-sweeping restrictions in the neighborhood that day, so I could only park on one half of the street, but those spaces were already taken. (I would have considered taking my chances parking on the street-sweeping side, but the couple cars over there had boots, so I figured it was better not to risk it.)
After driving around for 15 minutes, I finally saw a space. It was along a curb, with a car in front and an alley in back, so I had room to pull in without needing to parallel park. Perfect! I pulled up and realised I was hanging slightly into the bike lane, so I backed up and turned closer to the curb a bit, then pulled forward…and heard a terrible scraping sound and realized I was stuck.
I tried backing up, but it wouldn’t go. I tried inching forward, but it wouldn’t go. I thought if I could rev it hard, I could make it, but of course there was a car in front of me.
I got out and surveyed the scene. On a normal curb, my tire would have bumped, but this was a really really tall curb, and my wheels were jammed. Panic set in as I tried to figure out how I’d get home and how we would unstick the car.
I got back in and tried a few more times. I realized that by turning the steering wheel lightly, I could move a fraction of an inch in either direction. So I sat there, slowly rocking my car out of the space and praying that no one was filming it for YouTube. At one point, I noticed a AAA tow truck emerging from the alley behind me and was about to flag it down, but it turned the other way. I continued to maneuver the car inch by inch until I had finally freed myself.
I texted my husband to tell him I ruined our hubcaps. He wrote back, “We don’t have hubcaps.”
I said, “Well maybe we should. In that case, I ruined the round metal things in the middle of the tires.”
I hoped it would “just buff out,” but Hubby says no. So I broke our car, but at least it appears to be cosmetic.
Now it’s your turn. Make me feel better by sharing your traumatic parking stories.
You are not alone! Parking on the street it’s just inevitable that you’ll get some scrapes on the wheels and bumpers. As I walked home the other day, I took an informal survey of cars parked along the curb — over one-third (8 out 22) had mars or gouges similar to those in your photograph, or worse. It’s just a cost of doing business.
Oh, this happened to me the other day, just fortunately not as bad. I turned right into a spot next to a curb, and felt my rear right tire go up, and somehow I couldn’t back or turn or go forward enough to get it back down. I was stuck up on the curb and there were cars on the side and in front of me. So I just left it that way. I managed to wriggle out backwards ok after karate class was over and there wasn’t so much traffic behind me.
I’ve always been lousy at parking. When I was 16, 3 weeks after I got my license, I backed out of a parking space at my school and backed right into a parked, custom painted Camaro owned by a man known in the neighborhood as The Monster”. He an his brothers came running out of their house and scared me! Fortunately their mom was there and protectedme from them yelling too much. I was so scared after that incident that I didn’t want to drive for a few weeks. A few months later, while driving that same vehicle, my parent’s van, a video return box jumped out an attacked me. Fortunately, I’ve gotten a little better at parking and haven’t hit anything for a while, but I still have trouble parking straight and I avoid parallel parking whenever possible.
Don’t feel bad. I can’t park straight to save my soul ever since I ditched my Tribute for the Prius. My dh always parks askew in his Jetta too. I’ve decided it’s a problem with sedans.
My Prius is very low too. I’ve scraped my bumper on many a curb trying to park.
Not a parking story, but years ago I was driving a 1981 Pontiac Sunbird. They were built super low to the ground. It was also rear-wheel drive. The grocery store I used had recently repaved their parking lot and put speed bumps at the entrance and exit. I made it into the parking lot fine but apparently the speed bump at the exit was taller because once my front wheels cleared the bump the weight of the engine forced the front down and I was high centered with my rear wheels not touching the ground. I had no idea how to fix it. Finally enough people were wanting to exit that they all pushed down on the rear of my car and managed to get me past the bump. I had to get the exhaust system fixed and the oil leaked around the pan for the rest of the time I owned that car. It has been almost 20 years and I still don’t go to BigLots because it took over that store and they still have the same bump even though I now have a van that would easily clear it.
When I had my minivan, I was parking in a lot for a kids birthday party at a gymnastics club. As with any SUV or van, the blind spot behind the vehicle is awful. So, I backed into the spot when no one was around, knowing there would be all sorts of kids coming out at the same time later and then I could just pull out going forward. Of course, in my grand plan, I neglected to see the 2 foot tall boulder at the edge of the lot and backed into it with a crunch, putting a nice scrape on the bumper. I try to keep my cars looking nice, but I had so many touch ups on the minivan rear bumper that it looked awful. So far, I’ve only had one such incident now that I have an SUV with a backup cam and that one buffed right out;-)
I put a hole in the side wall of my tire parking in my own driveway. I got too close to the short retaining wall and turned the tire into the pipe holding up the railroad ties. And I’m usually pretty good at parking.
Traumatic parking stories? I’m not sure if I have any of those. However, I DO have hubcaps. Or I did before I smacked my tires against something and lost 2 of them. So now I’m driving a hoop-ty. Or at least it feels that way.