I can't parallel park for beans. Ask anyone. I'll walk an extra mile to get a parking space I can drive into, rather than even attempt to parallel park, especially in a city.
So I was very excited to see the new Lexus ads, with the car that parallel parks itself. Not that I'm in any danger of being able to afford this car. But I'm excited that the technology is being developed and that maybe, one day, it will be good enough and cheap enough to be a worthwhile option.
The New York Times published a review of the Lexus parking system this weekend. It sounds like it has a long way to go before it will be useful. Currently it (a) requires that you identify an appropriate space yourself and (b) recommends that such a space allow three feet of clearance at the front and the rear of the car. Even I can parallel park in a space with that much clearance!
But the article also talks about other manufacturers working on similar systems, some which hunt for appropriate spaces for you. One scans both sides of the road as you slowly drive around. Even better would be a system that scans the internet for open spaces - there are already web sites online for certain cities to help drivers find open parking spaces.
The big question is whether the public will embrace these automatic parking systems enough for them to become both better and cheaper. City dwellers, apparently, don't see the need. They're happy to bump and scrape and most likely no automated system will ever be able to get into as small a space as these expert parallel parkers can manage on their own. People living outside a city usually have plenty of parking choices available, either nose-in or parallel spaces with lots of clearance. So I'm not really sure who the audience for this system is, except those like me with a pathological fear of parallel parking. I don't think there are that many of us.
I'm afraid this will be the picture phone of my senior years--a promise that will take another 40 years to be fulfilled. Time will tell.
