Like many things however, practice makes perfect, coupled with a good understanding of how best to execute the manoeuvre.
So, when preparing to take your driving test, make sure you’ve read our essential guide to parallel parking first.
Parallel parking is a means of parking your vehicle parallel to the road, usually in a line of other vehicles.
Typically, you’ll drive your vehicle alongside the one in front of the available space, before reversing it in.
It’s generally considered one of the trickier skills for new drivers to learn, but becomes second nature with practice and can be essential when hunting for a parking space in a busy street after you’ve passed your test.
Parallel parking allows you to park in a smaller space than would be possible if you were driving forward into it.
Driving forward into a roadside space is usually only doable if two spaces in a row are unoccupied.
By reversing in, a driver can take advantage of a single empty space, not too much longer than the car.
Most residential roads accommodate roadside parking as standard, and in town and city centres where space is a premium, parallel parking might be the only option to get a space.
