Driver attempts to parallel park in generously-sized space for 6 minutes

Driver of yellow car obviously knows how to park. They were doing a pretty good job until they got confused between accelerator and brake.

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I agree but we are a densely packed island, housing is expensive and taking that attitude is really justifying your superior purchasing power.
One of my kids has a house in London valued at about $1.6 million, $300000 of which is probably the parking spaces out front. The other has a house valued at about $2.6 million with NO offstreet parking. You see the problem?

I admit that for town use I have a Toyota IQ. I can do a U-turn into a space on the other side of the road. The obsession with ever bigger cars is at the bottom of a lot of the trouble in the UK. As the economy gets tighter, people are actually buying bigger cars. The width more than the length is the problem on British roads.

I find it funny that you say public transportation is impractical because the UK is too densely populated. It’s weird.

I’ve got 2 kids who play ice hockey. Practices and games take place at rinks all over Vancouver and surrounding cities. I suppose we could choose not to have a car … but then either my kids don’t play or I spend hundreds of dollars a week on taxis.

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:wink:

Maybe I’m just getting old but I kind of feel like she could have done with some help.

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I find it funny that you seem determined to repeatedly trolley me (this is not the first time) by writing things I did not, in any shape or form, actually write.
I’m not going to bother to reply to you in future.

Sounds like your kids have purchasing power that is far superior to mine. I choose to not live in London, but if I did, I wouldn’t own a car.

Yep, you could choose to not have a car. Your family could also choose to not be a “hockey family”. My aversion to driving means that there are many things I could (and would even like to) do, but choose not to. I do other things instead.

When I lived in London, I didn’t own a car. That wasn’t my point. I was observing that house prices in the UK are very high despite often having only on-road parking, in response to the people who seem to be saying “whoever needs to park in the road?”
A lot of Londoners have nowhere at all to put cars. This doesn’t stop them from buying them.

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I don’t disagree that there are lots of cars parked in London streets because the owners don’t have anywhere to put them. I just think it is sad. I find London to be a worse place to live and visit as a result of the cars parked everywhere. Many others obviously disagree, and consider the street congestion to not be a deal-breaker.

There’s a “tragedy of the commons” thing going on, of course. An individual’s choice to own a car and park it on the street doesn’t significantly affect the overall streetscape experience for that individual, but there is a benefit to the car owner in terms of mobility (and status?). The slight impost on everyone else (from all car owners) adds up, and we end up with lines of cars clogging up streets and generally destroying the streetscape.

At least then hockey wouldn’t be the most dangerous activity the kids engage in! :wink:

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Wait…are you complaining about street parking in general? In other words, do you think everyone no matter where they live should have suburban-style off-street parking options or else not own a car?

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I think you confuse choice with martyrdom.

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Sorry, sorry, I seem to have missed your point.

I had a hard time getting the connection between high population density and the lack of options to go without a car, which I thought was the point you were making. Looks like I filled blanks incorrectly.

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There’s a Scottish video near the top of the list for YouTube’s search for “bad parallel parking” that claims they started taping at 20 minutes in, and it continues for 14 more minutes. I didn’t post it because the play-by-play is extremely sexist.
Anyway, the recorder claims a friend offered to park the car for the person, and was flat out refused. I guess some people hate being reminded they’re bad at certain tasks.

You aren’t good at parallel parking until you can do this

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It would indeed be nice if people didn’t use public space for the storage of their private possessions. But I’m realistic to know it’s not an option in general. However, the removal of street parking from densely populated areas where population density is high enough to support good public transport, and where the scarce space could be better used to provide better public and active transportation options (even bike lanes :open_mouth: the horror!) definitely has my support.

In many cities, there are vast unused parkades full of “Reserved 24 hours” spaces. This is an incredibly inefficient use of those facilities. Re-selling of 24-hour reserved spaces when the the “tenants” aren’t using them (in my observation, this is a lot of the time) would be a useful addition to the availability of parking.

Consider how much land is allocated in general to the storage of our cars. Consider also that cars are utilised for less than 5% of the time they are on earth.

Yeah, it is a bit like martyrdom in that you would be giving up what you choose to do and enjoy (although not your life), solely for the benefit of others. None of us do that, eh?

I know it doesn’t account for most people but disability is a good reason.

In my personal case I have talked with some friends about the possibility of getting an electric motor put on a trike, but my life has been so stressful for the last two years that it got put on hold. If i lived somewhere that was more hilly than Oxford (and Headington Hill is hard enough for a lot of able bodied people) that I doubt it would be a realistic choice. If I was still living in Carlisle then I would need a car to do anything other than sit in a house all day.

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