This Is Why Autonomous Parking Systems Aren’t Such a Bad Idea After All

From the classic larger-than-life ego that can’t be constrained to a single parking place for his very regular car to OCD affected people who park in the exact center of the square on the asphalt, a trip to the mall or supermarket will reveal them all.

And then there are those who would rather circle the spots closest to the entrance for minutes, waiting for one of them to free, instead of parking further away and just walk a little for a change. Or those who don’t care if you were the first to spot a place and were signaling your intention to park there - if they can get in ahead of you, it’s theirs.

Special parking places for disabled people? There are no such things. There are only king-sized spots painted in blue to match the color of the blood of those who are allowed to park there. It’s as simple as that.

But let’s just focus on people’s actual ability to park their cars, and not their moral code, because there’s plenty to talk about. Take, for instance, this white Mercedes-Benz ML in the clip below.

The driver had countless examples around him of how to do it properly, and yet he managed to leave the car more than half into the middle of the lane. But there’s a catch, and it appears like the author of this video missed it: there was a huge puddle right where the driver’s door would have been had the car been parked correctly. Does that excuse the driver? Not really, but it does mean that it’s not his skills we should be doubting, but his common sense.

The obvious solution would have been to search for another parking space, as it looks like a pretty sunny day and the asphalt looks dry, so the chances of coming across another puddle were minimum. The other solution would have been to simply back into the parking spot, leaving the small pond on the passenger’s side. But that would have required common sense AND a minimum amount of skill. Or a self-parking feature.