Australia's cities ranked by prowess at 'anxiety-inducing' parking manoeuvre

Wagga Wagga has been named among the top 10 places in Australia where residents struggle with the dreaded reverse parallel park the most, and Wollongong among the least, according to new research.

Noting that “a lot of car insurance claims are made for vehicles that are damaged when parked”, insurance comparison service Compare the Market Australia looked at monthly searches on Google for “how to parallel park” and broke it down per 1000 people by city.

“Parallel parking is one of the most anxiety-inducing manoeuvres, with thousands of people all around the world searching for how to parallel park every single day,” it said in a statement.

“If the mere thought of this particular manoeuvre starts to make you feel stressed, don’t worry, as you’re not alone.”

Blacktown took first place, with 13.33 per 1000 people scouring the internet for tips on how to parallel park, followed by Frankston at 6.67 per 1000 and Melton at 5.07 per 1000, both in Victoria.

These were followed by Pakenham South (4.25), Bathurst (3.62), Caloundra (3.36), Orange (3.31), Dubbo (3.09), Kalgoorlie (2.89) and Wagga between Orange and Dubbo at 3.20 Google searches per 1000 people.

At the other end of the spectrum, the cities most confident in their parallel-parking abilities – with the least searchers per 1000 people – were Mackay (0.27), Bendigo (0.50), Wollongong (0.58), Gold Coast (0.61) and a tie between Perth and Geelong at 0.71.

The South Coast got a mention with Nowra at 2.32 searches per 1000 people, while the ACT region recorded 0.9 for Canberra and 1.23 for Queanbeyan. (Does this mean Canberra drivers are better than those in NSW?)

Compare the Market Australia executive general manager Adrian Taylor notes: “Parallel parking is one of those manoeuvres that can be very daunting at first but gradually gets easier over time once you’ve had plenty of practice.”

To pass your driving test in Australia, you must also reverse parallel park, with no more than four moves to enter and leave the space and no more than 30 cm between your car and the kerb when parked.

Canberra-based driver training company Fifth Gear Motoring says learners “absolutely” struggle with it, at least until they master the basic moves.

“The biggest reason why people struggle later on in life to be able to do the reverse parallel park is because they forget the framework,” managing director Dean Chapman told Region.

“It becomes quite difficult again if you don’t do it and forget the steps, but it’s actually really simple.”

Here’s the gist:

• Pull up next to the car you want to park behind, making sure your side mirror is in line with theirs.
• Look over your left shoulder and reverse straight back until you see the parked car’s brake light appear in your left rear window.
• While continuing to slowly reverse, turn the steering wheel so your rear is pointing at roughly a 45-degree angle to the kerb.
• Continue to reverse at this angle until you see the parked car’s brake light over the top of your left-hand mirror when you begin to turn the steering wheel in the opposite direction.
• Reverse back no more than three metres from the vehicle in front and drive forward again to park about one metre from it.

Mr Chapman said most learners fail the parallel park part of their test by ending up too far from the gutter or at an angle.

“The other way you could fail is by not performing the appropriate head checks and making sure vulnerable road users, and other road users, aren’t impeded while you’re completing the manoeuvre.

“The other thing we commonly see is people touching the gutter with the tyres when they reverse back, and that’s generally because they’ve completed the second turn too late.”

He added the most important thing is to “go slow”.

“It’s important to make sure it nicely flows so it all works because stopping and starting interrupts that.”

See? Simple. You can stop Googling it now, Waggonians.