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Reverse Parking Made Easy
dsmalle writes "Dr. Rebecca Hoyle from Surrey University in England has derived a formula for reverse parking your car. A lot of insurance companies would welcome an initiative to automate parking using this formula I guess. I'm sure somebody must have tried to do this before, so why don't we see this in cars?" New York drivers know that a space that's the length of your car plus six inches is plenty of room. :)
Well, journalists need a few opening parentheses, so we can understand the formula.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
I thought this article was going to talke about backing into a "normal" parking spot. But apparently people don't seem to know what a paralell park is. It's not a reverse park.
Personally, I think if you can't park anywhere, at anytime, then you shouldn't be driving. United States hand out driver's licenses too easily. The driving test should be a rigorous test of skill. Only extremely skilled drivers should be allowed to get behind the wheel. A system like that would have numerous obvious positive effects. One of them would be that driving would be a lot more fun. Mainly because you have confidence in your own ability as well as the ability of others. You wouldn't have to be constantly watching out for what every other car is doing, but instead be able to have fun worrying about your own driving.
On another slightly more unrelated note, speed limits are bs. Speed limits make the roads less safe in order to provide revenue for the states. Most people drive comfortable at about 85 mph (on the highway). If the speed limit was 85, not many people would feel comfortable driving faster than that. Presently with speed limits like 65 and 75 people feel that they are still in control of their car when they go over the limit. What results is some people who refuse to go over the limit and some people who always go 5 or 10 or even 15 mph over the limit. I think its obvious that it would be safer if every car on the road was driving at about 85mph as opposed to some driving 65 and some driving as high as 90. Mixing fast + slow cars disrupts the traffic and makes thing less-safe.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
If women can't even park their cars right, how the hell are they going to compute (p=r-w/2,g)-w+2r+b,f )-w+2r-fg max((r+w/2)+f,(r+w/2)+b)-((2r),(r+w/2+k)) on the fly??
Um, isn't "reverse parking" called "driving"?
Or is this about backing into a parking space?
Don't forget the extra senses available to urban parkers.
Namely, instead of just limiting yourself to visual cues to determine the distance between your car and the bounding cars, you can use your internal accelerometer to sense a slight bump when you get sufficiently close to the other car.
If you're in hurry, you can use acoustic senses, too. There will a nice "bonk" sound as your car meets the next one.
Finally, in some cases it is possible to nudge adjoining cars over just enough to create space for your car. When you do this, though, make sure that no pedestrians are between you and the car to be nudged.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Hell, in Cambridge/Boston (and I presume any crowded city), you will see cars all the time that show the signs of not needing a space that is longer than the length of your car.
It can even be a few inches shorter.
There were multiple times I've come out to see someone squeezed up against my car and another car on the other side of them.
So presumably, as long as your car has modern plastic/springy bumpers, and you don't care about it (specifically the transmission I would guess), then just cram it in to the spot and enjoy your parking spot.
Granted this will bend your license plate, crack your bumpers, perhaps ding your fenders, and likely lose you some paint... but hey, it is worth it to park.
Usually you see this technique on Honda Civics and other cars of that size and price range.
The big BMW/Mercedes/etc seem to like their cars too much.
Although you also tend to see a lot of Jeeps doing it - they are higher up, so it usually does less damage to them and more damage to others.
Ahh, the joys of parallel parking.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
I parallel parked in a space that was literally about 8 inches bigger than my car, without a scratch to my car or anyone else's. I was so proud, I wanted to take a picture.
I'll second that. Not only you make good points, but I'll go further by saying that most speed limits were set some 30 years ago, when cars weren't nearly as safe as what they are now: think about airbags, crash-tests, engineering on the car body (basically made softer) to avoid killing the driver, etc.
My folks' volvo has a turning radius of slightly larger than 30 feet- and it's a full size wagon. Volvos are famous for wide steering angle. It also has exceptional visibility, due to enormous windows all around.
I can parallel-park it in about 6 seconds flat, in ONE move(no forward/backwards business), to within two inches of the curb, provided I've got 12 inches of room.
Some people just don't "get" "how" cars "go" backwards, despite how simple it really is. Of course, I had spent most of my childhood summers driving a outboard motorboat, so I had driving backwards etc down pat(boats are far trickier, since you often have to VERY quickly apply force to stop moving in a particular direction; try parallel parking a boat); trailers are still a little tricky because they have a lot of "conditions" to their movement when going backwards. In all cases, you've got to think about how the car is going to move, and more importantly, where the non-steering end of the car is going to end up based on your actions, because that's most of the game(-especially- with trailers).
Please help metamoderate.
Personally, I think if you can't spell anywhere, at anytime, then you shouldn't be typing. United States hand out keyboards too easily. The spelling test should be a rigorous test of skill. Only extremely skilled spellers should be allowed to get behind the keyboard A system like that would have numerous obvious positive effects. One of them would be that reading would be a lot more fun. Mainly because you have confidence in your own ability as well as the ability of others. You wouldn't have to be constantly watching out for what every other word is, but instead be able to have fun worrying about your own spelling.
Get front wheel drive manual car with a very very good handbrake.
;).
Head towards the parking spot at a fair speed, as perpendicular to the spot as you can. Swerve car and pull handbrake and then brake and counter steer so that you neatly skid and slide in sideways.
With this method you can park in a spot that's practically the same length as your car - just depends on how accurate you are.
Getting out requires a bit more space - the length of the space must be slightly more than the diagonal length of your car. Pull handbrake to max, turn steering wheel max (to lock) towards side you want to exit from. Stomp on clutch, red line engine, release clutch, burn rubber and gradually spin car out of space.
Not recommended in uncontrolled environments
Caption: "TIGHT FIT: A female mathematician..."
A tight fit eh...
Mod me down...