I have had the pleasure of watching a few of our members bring their teenagers to Christ the King’s parking lot to learn how to parallel park in preparation for taking the DMV driving test necessary to get a driver’s license. We have some safety cones used for the Nursery School and parents dutifully set them out with a generous distance so their daughter or son can practice getting it just right in negotiating a vehicle into a parking spot.
Of course, that isn’t the real world but neither is the driving test offered by any state. Apparently the District of Columbia has given up on even making any attempt of asking a person to perform a parallel park example if this story is correct. When you read the story, make sure you watch the video at the end of a true expert at parallel parking in New York. That person would make the Hall of Fame of parallel parkers!
How sad that even the basic requirements for a driver’s license are being ignored. I will freely admit that during my test, I lost all 6 of the 6 possible points because I hit both the sticks set out to mark spot for parallel parking. Those were the only points I had taken off my test and it spurred me on to practice more until even today I feel I can parallel park with confidence, although I won’t go looking for a spot to show off my skills.
There are some very funny/sad videos on YouTube of folks and their attempts at parallel parking. With situations like the District of Columbia beginning to allow, it will only get worse.
For the record, when I took the driver’s test in Missouri, it took me two tries because I failed the parallel parking part of the exam the first time. But I was coming from Tennessee where the driving portion of the exam was a ride around the block so I wasn’t prepared for what happened in Missouri.
But I went home and practiced, waited the appropriate amount of time, came back and passed the driving portion.
As it turned out, that was the last time I was actually tested on my driving skills. I have held driver’s licenses in Illinois, Kansas Tennessee (a second time), Minnesota, Kentucky, and Texas, and now New York. I have never had to take more than a rudimentary driver’s exam (the Kansas exam was interactive and that was fun; Texas was similar to Kansas in that I looked at pictures of driving situations and asked what would I do) and I have not had my driving skills tested since I got that license in Missouri over forty years ago.