Welcome, aspiring car park menaces! Are you tired of toeing the line? If so, you're in the right place. This here is your ultimate guide to mastering the art of atrocious car parking. We’ll walk you through the finer points of parking like nobody's watching – because let's face it, you certainly won't be.
So dial down that spatial awareness, and dial up the sense of entitlement. Use these tips wisely and you'll build your reputation as a nuisance parker in no time!
First: choose your poor parking style
While you could freestyle it, there are two proven options when you intend to take up multiple car spaces.
Option 1: The Skew
The first poor parking style is pulling up out of alignment so you breach the space next to yours. An acute angle is most common, but if you’re a true agent of chaos you’ll go 45 degrees or beyond, causing a cascade of other drivers to park their car out of alignment too. Bonus points if you can park across three bays simultaneously. Remember: you don’t need to leave room for drivers next to you to enter their vehicle, because it’s a commonly known fact that humans can compress their bodies like snakes to get through small spaces.
Option 2: The Straddle
The second popular poor parking style is to pull up directly over a white line, clearly asserting your dominance and demonstrating to everyone in the vicinity that you think your car is better than theirs. In fact, your car is twice as good – hence twice the space! While some see parking lines as an important symbol of a civilised society, you see them more as a threat to your pearlescent paint finish. So go forth and straddle with pride. Heck – why not break out the traffic cones and the velvet rope while you’re at it? That’ll really keep the plebs away.
Next: choose your moment
If a poor parking job happened in an empty car park, did it even really happen?
To maximise your impact make sure you arrive during peak hours for maximum inconvenience to everyone around you. Holidays and school pick-ups are ideal, as are summer days at the beach. Really, any situation where you can ruin someone’s day will do. Take your moment in the spotlight, and inspire muttered curses from every car that cruises past looking for a spot.
Finally: never back down
If you’ve driven into a bay and know deep down that you’re across the lines, don’t do the expected thing and correct your park. Instead, apply that handbrake and stride on to complete your errands without a backwards glance. Nobody ever died from a dirty look! And when you arrive back at your vehicle, take those hand-scrawled notes filled with choice words and make sure you recycle them responsibly.
In all seriousness – there are a few circumstances where parking outside the lines are acceptable. One is obviously if the ACROD bays are occupied and you need more room for wheelchair ramp deployment. Another might be if you’re towing a trailer or have a long vehicle and are trying to find a spot that’s safe for all. The various states and territories generally require drivers to take up the minimum amount of car bays possible, which is always a good rule of thumb. What we’re saying is, keep it chill in the carpark and remember that there will always be another space, somewhere.
Need a new car to leave the parking shame behind?
If your car parking faux pas have you wanting a fresh start, you can check out hundreds of second-hand cars on Carma. All pre-owned cars for sale have met outrageously high standards; you can easily trade your current car in; and you can even filter cars by feature. Rear parking camera, anyone?
