- Hi there, smart drivers,
Rick for Smart Drive Test,
talking to you today about curb parking.
Do your rims look like this? (laughs)
When you curb park,
are you way too far from the curb
because you're afraid of hitting the curb?
Today we're going to give you tips and strategies
to park perfectly along the curb.
Stick around, we'll be right back with that information.
(up beat)
Welcome back, the first reason that you're having challenges
with curb parking is because the second biggest blind area
on the vehicle is out the passenger side.
It's almost 12 feet in a midsize SUV,
next to the one at the rear,
which is your biggest blind area,
but this is your biggest blind area.
So you need to get a feel for this.
There's no secret formula for this about finding out
where your vehicle is in relation to other objects.
In other words the curb
which is only this tall.
So the first thing you need to do is go
and get some of those 36 one-meter tall pylons,
and backwards forwards along those
until you're comfortable getting close to them.
And then you can work with the smaller pylons
and then practice curb parking.
First thing we're going to do, hook up the cameras.
We're going to go out, we're going to show you
how to pull off the shoulder of the road,
parked behind another vehicle,
and then park along the curb
where there aren't any vehicles.
Parking along the edge of a road is going
to prepare you for curb parking.
This is an exercise
that you can practice first
before you get into curb parking (laughs)
and actually scraping your tires.
Because when you get off the edge of the road,
you can kind of feel when it gets a bit spongy
and you get into the ditch.
The other thing about this
is if you get too far into the ditch,
you might get stuck or drop off
into (laughs) the deep part,
which you don't want to do for the purposes of curb parking.
So you just pull up,
look farther down the road,
look at the utility poles, mirror, signal, shoulder check,
and then simply pull over.
And you could feel when you drop off
the edge of the pavement.
And that's basically where you want to be,
is to have the tires just drop off
the edge of the pavement,
signal one, steer the vehicle into park
into a forward gear if you're driving a manual,
signal off if you're leaving secure the vehicle and proceed.
So, parking break off into drive or forward gear,
mirror signal, shoulder check, nothing coming.
And we proceed.
(car engine roaring)
Look down the road and accelerate.
Curb parking behind another vehicle is going to be easiest,
we can see that the car is very close
and basically from where we're sitting,
we just line up with the taillight.
When the bumper,
we can just see the top of the bumper,
that we stopped the vehicle,
parking brake on into a forward gear into park
and secure the vehicle if you're going to leave.
And to leave,
hold the foot brake parking brake off
and do a reverse,
looking out the back,
check your backup camera,
check your mirrors.
One hand top of the steering wheel,
looking out at the back,
two to three feet,
mirror signal, shoulder check,
got a car here,
truck backing up in front of us.
So we're just going to wait for that.
And you can see I've got a piece of tape
on the top of my steering wheel,
mirror signal, shoulder check, nothing coming,
steering all the way to the left,
back to the right (car engine roaring).
And we bring the steering wheel back and accelerate.
Parking along a curb without any vehicles
is a little bit tougher,
but you want to look for your landmarks,
your landmarks here, mirror signal, shoulder check,
are your parking meters.
Just look farther down the road
and park where you want to be right there.
Mirror signal, shoulder check,
secure the vehicle, parking brake on,
release the foot brake, signal's off.
Turn the vehicle off, secure the vehicle.
It's that simple.
Looking farther down the road,
lifting up your vision,
looking for your landmarks
when you're parking along a curb,
when there is another vehicle.
It's always going to be easier
when you park behind another vehicle.
But again, it's just practice.
Get those 36 inch one-meter tall pylons
and practice, learning where that side of the vehicle
is that biggest second biggest blind area
where it is in space and place.
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and remember pick the best answer.
Not necessarily the right answer.
Have a great day, bye now.