Parking a square peg in a round hole

I was thinking recently — yes, it is noteworthy — that many young people today will never know what it is like to learn how to reverse a car. They will never have to learn the secret of parallel parking, being able to squeeze their vehicle into the tightest of spaces.

All they have to do now is press a button and, zip, the car’s technology and sensors do it all for them. Where’s joy in that?

There’s a great deal of satisfaction to be had in finally coming across a tight space on a street, doing some quick calculations, then slipping it in. Then again, there’s nothing worse than looking at a space, deciding to go for it and, after reversing and almost dislocating your shoulder and straining your neck trying to get it in there, realise that it’s not going to go. Despite your best efforts, the front quarter of the car is sticking out and for all the tea in China isn’t going to go in. You drive away, defeated, embarrassed, emasculated, shaking your head that you failed in your mission.

I have to confess too that there’s a great sense of accomplishment to be had when you do get the car parked into a tight spot.

Now, confession time. How many of you have ever gently nudged the car in front or the one behind while you’re parking in a tight spot? I’ll admit to it. Not a hit, just a tap, an almost imperceptible thud of bumper on bumper. I call it parking by touch. You look around to make sure no one saw you. When you get out of your own car you might then feint the loose shoelace manoeuvre or the dropped keys fake. And as you bend to tie or pick up, you’re actually giving the other vehicle the once and twice over to make sure no damage was done.

The latest car I drive has a rear-view camera and all sorts of buzzers and beepers that get louder as you reverse into a space and things get closer and tighter. There are green lines that show you where you should go, yellow ones that project where you might, and red ones to warn you where not to go. Colour-coded parking in full surround sound. The beeps shriek at you to stop before you get anywhere near bumper-on-bumper level. I actually think the beepers might summon all sorts of rescue services and a fully military response if plastic were to mate with plastic.

Determination overrides spatial awareness

There’s nothing worse too than trying to drive into a tight parking spot at the local mall and it looks big enough from the driver’s seat. Determination overrides spatial awareness. I’ll drive in and reverse out, straightening the wheels, backwards and forwards until I’m finally satisfied in my own mind — regardless of what those parking sensors say. Parking sensors? More like parking censors, trying to prevent the act of fitting a square peg into a round hole.

So, after several corrections, backwards and forwards and hand brake on, ignition off. Then you try and open the door and you suddenly realise you’ve put on 20 extra kilograms on the way to the mall because you can’t fit out the door. You have to do the shimmy and squeeze, deep breath in and you try to unfurl your legs as you unceremoniously bundle out of the driver’s seat.

I hope that when the technological innovators of this world do finally hone the ability for cars to drive by themselves, they don’t include a default setting in the algorithms that removes the tight parking parameters. It’ll be a sad day indeed if parking becomes effortless.

Mick O’Reilly is the Gulf News Foreign Correspondent based in Europe