Monday, November 02, 2020
The man who enjoys parallel parking
Parallel parking is rare in recent decades since shopping malls pulled most stores away from downtowns. Avoiding parallel was one of the drawing cards for malls.
During the years when I was driving regularly, I probably parallel parked three times, and two of those times were on the drivers license exams. There's almost always a way to avoid parallel if you're willing to walk a bit, and I've always preferred walking over driving.
On my noon walks, two days in a row, I've seen the same driver parallel parking here in the neighborhood. This is a fairly quiet residential area. The place where he parked was between two cars on a mostly empty block. The opposite side was entirely empty. He could avoid the parallel by walking 20 extra steps, or crossing a street with little traffic.
The parallel move (backing into the place at an angle) is salient, so it caught my attention both times.
Labels: Bemusement
¶ 11:43 PM
