Our experience tells us that one driving manoeuvre causes more initial concern amongst learner drivers than any other. This manoeuvre is known as parallel parking but the good news is that with a little practice, you will soon be able to master this just as you have the others.

What is Parallel Parking?

Parallel parking is the preferred method of parking your vehicle in line with other parked vehicles.

To be able to successfully ‘parallel park’, you will be required to drive slightly past the parking space, parallel to the parked vehicle in front of that space, (hence the term ‘Parallel Parking’), keeping a safe distance, then followed by reversing into that space.

Any subsequent position adjustment which you may need will involve the use of forward and reverse gears.

Learning the Correct Technique

By utilising the correct technique, parallel parking will enable you to park your vehicle in a smaller space than you would be able through simply driving forward into the space.

This manoeuvre often proves to be very useful because driving forward into a parking space on the side of a road is typically not possible unless two successive parking spaces are empty.

Reversing into the spot via the parallel parking technique allows one to take advantage of a single empty space not much longer than the car (in order to complete the parking within three wheel-turns the parking space would generally need to be about one and a half car-length long).

We will teach the correct technique to ensure that all new drivers learn the ability to use reference points to align themselves in relation to the car in front of the space, to help them determine the proper angle for reversing, and to determine when to turn the steering wheel while backing. They may find it easier to briefly stop at each reference point and turn for the next step.

The following video from https://www.learnerdriving.com explores this in further detail.