Zen and the art of parking a car

Our cars rock a lot of tech, and while some of it is neat, some of it is silly and even insults our intelligence.

One small example: a car’s ability to park for you automatically, either parallel parking or perpendicular.

First, it's hard to believe anybody actually uses it. Why would someone with parking chops bother? By the time you fiddle around setting up the thing, you could be parked already. I’ve never tested this feature on a press vehicle, because who cares. It exists on a personal vehicle and has gone unused there, too. Sadly, some portion of my car purchase price paid for it.

So, I have no idea if it actually works, but let’s assume it performs brilliantly. It’s still a small affront.

What is the most feared part of a DMV driving test? Parallel parking. And rightly so, because what’s the part most new drivers flunk? Parallel parking. What do some drivers with years of experience still seem to struggle with? Parallel parking. Heck, some people aren’t even particularly good at getting between the lines of a perpendicular space.

Your response might be, hey, that's the argument favoring this feature: Here’s a task some people struggle with, and here’s a marvelous technological solution to their problem. But it’s not a solution — it facilitates their problem, allows it to go unaddressed.

JFK called for doing things "not because they are easy, but because they are hard." Automatic parking is taking the easy way out.

Why is parallel parking even on driving tests? Because it reveals whether a driver has fine control over their vehicle; has a spatial awareness of the dimensions of the car and its surroundings; and that they understand the geometry involved in maneuvering it. Parking tests competency, mastery of the machine. If a driver can’t manage this small, low-speed bit of stationkeeping, how well will they execute the high-stakes stuff they’ll encounter out on the road?