More Room to Park for Women?

pompa ;) must say I sympathise with her... a bit!

! If I have someone too close behind me I slow right down. It doesn't take much to amuse me and keep me happy.

I almost forgot, I once owned part of a carpark! And yes, different councils seem to have different minimum widths. We bought the house next to the carpark and one side of it came with the house. The house was a bit too expensive for us to afford but as the station was only 7 mins walk away, we knew that if we sold off some of the spaces we could get back the money we couldn't afford. The estate agent tried to get us to make it into 6 spaces, but they would have been so narrow that we wouldn't do it, we made it into five.

pompa

Don't you just hate it when you are in a hurry and some silly old duffer driving in front of you keeps exactly to the speed limits, even slows down past a children's playground, gives way to someone coming the other way. He also takes no notice of you waving your fists at him, swearing, trying to get him to go faster by getting right up behind him. And he just sits there grinning like some demented old fool, and if he wants to drive so carefully, why does he need such a bloody great car, shouldn't be allowed on the road at his age.

Or at least that what the young lady in a mini seemed to think of me (I use the term "lady" loosely.

Regardless of the "women driver" jokes, parking spaces are too small for comfort in many car parks. Even if you are able to get into the space without excessive shunting, there is too little space to get in/out of the car, especially if you are on the larger side (as I am). Regarding disabled/child parking, it annoys me that if you are temporarily disabled (as I am) you cannot get a blue badge. Went to a NT property last week and the had "limited mobility spaces" marked with a walking stick for people like me, brilliant idea.

I agree with Jane. Most car park spaces are far too small, especially in multi stories. Cars have got wider to accommodate side air bags and bigger people while the parking space has stayed at Morris Minor size.

I've never had a problem with reversing (and I can read maps without turning them upside down [bighead] ) but I'm in the fortunate position that our XTrail has a reversing camera - and a wonderful birds eye view screen which shows where the kerb/white lines are!

When I was working I was very good at parking between two cars in the back streets. I have rather lost that ability since retiring.

Probably because they wouldn't be able to squeeze quite so many spaces into the area available - but I agree, it would make things a lot easier.

It is sexist but I wouldn't be offended. I'd just roll my eyes.

I often wonder why most British car parks mark the spaces at right angles to the lanes instead of having them at a slant. It'd make parking masses easier.

Reverse parking and parallel parking, whats Hells these are!However, I have noticed that the newer the multi-storey car park is, the wider the spaces, and also plenty of space to reverse out in.The worse ones were built in the 60's.It's not only cars that are wider these days either, the people are.The original post; yes it's very sexist of the Chinese [not the best record of anything there]so typical I would say.Bigger spaces all round would be the ideal, where possible.

Its a skill and there are a lot of people who never master it, it was something that has always come easily to me and I never have a problem even in the underground ones with posts and pillars all over the gaff, this skill however does not extend to parallel parking , I can't, never have and no matter how many times I've attempted it I never do that neat tuck into a tiny space that OH manages with such ease and one hand on the wheel, I always either end up up against the kerb or one end sticking out.. I don't know what the problem is when I can reverse into the tiniest space between two cars without shuffling.

I've just watched a skip driver reverse onto my neighbours drive; at an angle and with about 2cm to spare with the wall on each side of the driveway. I don't think I'm worthy of being on the same planet as this guy. Respect! [I was only watching in case he knocked my wall down ]. Had he had one hand holding a mobile phone [which is what the majority of people turning round in my cul de sac do] I would've been even more impressed.

{grin]

...risk...; my typos are getting worse....

From what I remember I just drove round the streets near to the test centre. I had to drive past a school, and showed how careful I was in areas like that and did all the emergency stops etc. Maybe it's because I took the test in my own car, a Morris 1000 Traveller, and the examiner realised he was sitting next to a learner driver with no dual controls in a car with brakes that had a sort of delay of several seconds before they worked and didn't want to rusk his life on a fast road . I know for years whenever I was a passenger in anyone elses car my foot was constantly going for the brake because I didn't understand why they weren't braking several hundred yards before where they wanted to stop .

How did you get away with that Tegan?

I remember when I took my test I was just a quivering wreck , when he said I "d passed I just burst into tears.

The instructor had to drive me home !!

Thankfully when I took my test I didn't have to reverse park or drive over 30mph.

Yes, I know that, granjura - I'd never have passed my driving test if that had been one of the criteria in this country!

I can't remember as it was such a long time ago and I had to take 2 driving licences in one year, 1 in Switzerland, and another one after 6 months in London. But don't you HAVE TO BE ABLE TO REVERSE PARK IN TIGHT SPACE to PASS your test in the UK. I certainly had to for the Swiss test.

I'm fine with forward parking, and reversing out of spaces. But I do wish I could reverse into a parking space, as DD does with such ease!

I've tried practising in an empty-ish area of Asda and Tesco, but I'm always so wide of the mark I give up in embarrassment in case anyone's watching...

I really enjoy having the DGC to visit as I can have the extra wide spaces to help me get my feet out of the car.

Of course if I was given a massive space in which to park [eg an empty car park] it would throw me as I'd have to make a decision about which space to drive into .

TEGAN

As long as you are out of mischief !!

It's the sort of thing my ex would say so I tend to assume that comments like that are meant in jest....I wonder if different supermarkets have different sized parking spaces? I bet Tescos [who I hate but tend to use] have larger spaces than other shops. I may do my own little survey [it'll keep me out of mischief for a while]. I switched to Tescos from Sainsburys because I found it easier to park there.

Most of us want larger parking spaces- but it has nothing to do with gender. The new car-park at the new shopping centre (Highcross) in Leicester has very wide spaces btw- and our local French supermarket too- hurrah.