One aspect of being parked on the wrong side of the road is that to exit the spot, you need to swing out into on-coming traffic with poor sightlines from your kerbside driver’s seat. This exacerbated if the vehicle in front of you is a big white van (as is common in the UK). It is especially bad for approaching cyclists who will be even more hidden by the vehicle in front.
Honestly, it seems just to be a terrible idea. There is good reason why it is illegal just about everywhere except the UK.
This is just speculation, but as most roads, especially in towns, only have a single lane in either direction, it is more practical to keep an eye out for a space on the “wrong” side of road (less traffic to cut across), and the shortage of parking spaces provides an incentive to do so (if you see a space on the other side of the road, you’re more likely to grab it rather than carry on in the hope of finding one on your side).
If you do decide to park on the “wrong” side, the narrower road means there’s less likely space to do a U-turn, so the standard manoeuvre would be to wait for an absence of traffic coming from the other direction, cut across into the other lane (so you’re briefly driving the wrong way), and reverse into the space. Hence, you end up parking the “wrong way round”.
I don’t see how there is less traffic to cut across than parking on the side of the road you’re already on. But I can see how it might be easier than turning around, and how it would seem even more convenient on a narrow road. Still doesn’t make it a good idea.
I’ve just reread my “explanation”, and can see it was less than clear. Apologies.
For what it’s worth, I no longer own a car, hated parallel parking when I did, and wouldn’t have attempted the manoeuvre I described for fear of getting honked at by angry drivers coming the other way while I repeatedly tried and failed to reverse into the space.
[quote=“tekk, post:16, topic:102491”]
At least in my neck of the woods, parallel parking isn’t on the driver’s test anymore.[/quote]
Back when I had my driving test, in 2000 France, it took me two tries to successfully parallel park. But I did the proper security controls at all times, which was the main point.
And making parking facing the wrong way illegal? Gosh. Do they fine dirty cars too? Talk about control freakery. OTOH more roads in UK are one lane eachway so it’s not as big a deal as if there were 3 or 4 lanes each way and no central reservation (median?). Nearly all roads with 3 or more lanes each way here have barriers in the centre, or are no parking zones anyway, so parking in the other direction never occurs. But blanket illegality? Does that apply even in residential roads? Any authority trying to enforce that over here would be a laughing stock.
No, it does not. White van parks in front of you? Indicate clearly, pull front left hand corner out very slowly until you see something you need to let pass or which stops to let you out. Anyone coming the other way sees you and goes round if they can or stops to let you out. You only need to be 2-3 feet out to be able to see round a van with most cars in UK, anyway.
By the time you’ve driven past the space, turned round so it is on your side of the road now, and driven back, someone will have parked in it.
Nah, it happens in Germany, too. Though mostly in suburbs, where there isn’t a lot of traffic, execpt in the morning and afternoon. It’s pure laziness, they just drive to the sidewalk - there’s often only one - instead of looking how to turn.
I think thats somewhere here in Germany (traffic signs, car models, type of pavement, registration plates), even thou I find it hard to believe that anybody who has got though getting a german drivers licence can be THAT bad.
The first 30 seconds were funny, then it got more and more frustrating. In the end I was just infuriated by the incompetence of that person. She needs her drivers licence invalidated untill she has learned how to park her shitty Opel Corsa properly.
In the US, as long as there isn’t a lot of oncoming traffic, I just pull the front of the vehicle into the space and use it to turn around before parallel parking the right direction. It takes all of 10 seconds.
Edit: I suppose the UK does have a fair number of those bizarre single lane streets that by all rights should be one-way, but for some reason are two-way where even a three-point turn would be difficult.
