Wrong Parking Cars

Parking is the act of stopping a vehicle right side up and leaving it unoccupied for more than a brief time. Parking on one or both sides of a road is commonly permitted, though often with restrictions. Parking facilities are constructed in combination with most buildings, to facilitate the coming and going of the buildings’ users.
Modes of parking
Parking in central Rome, Italy. Although the cars leave a space, this is soon filled with a scooter or motorcycle making it near-impossible for the cars to leave.

For most motorised vehicles, there are three basic modes of parking, based on the arrangement of vehicles — parallel parking, perpendicular parking, and angle parking. These are self-park configurations where the vehicle driver is able to access the parking independently.
Parallel parking
Main article: Parallel parking

With parallel parking of cars, these are arranged in a line, with the front bumper of one car facing the back bumper of an adjacent one. This is done parallel to a curb, when one is provided. Parallel parking is the most common mode of streetside parking for cars. It may also be used in parking lots and parking structures, but usually only to supplement parking spaces that use the other modes.
[edit] Perpendicular parking
Bombala’s (perpendicular) back-in parking style.

With perpendicular parking of cars, these are parked side to side, perpendicular to an aisle, curb, or wall. This type of car parking is more scalable than parallel parking and is therefore commonly used in car parking lots and car parking structures.

Often, in car parking lots using perpendicular parking, two rows of parking spaces may be arranged front to front, with aisles in between.

Sometimes, a single row of perpendicular car parking spaces is marked in the center of a street. This arrangement eliminates reversing from the manoeuvre; cars are required to drive in forwards and drive out forwards.
[edit] Angle parking/echelon parking
Angle parking along the Southsea seafront, England.

Angle parking of cars is similar to perpendicular parking for these vehicles, except that cars are arranged at an angle to the aisle (an acute angle with the direction of approach). The gentler turn allows easier and quicker parking, narrower aisles, and thus higher density than perpendicular parking. While in theory the aisles are one way, in practice they are typically wide enough to allow two cars to pass slowly when drivers go down the aisles the wrong way.

Angle parking is very common in car parking lots. It may also be used in streetside car parking in the U.S. when there is more width available for car parking than would be needed for parallel parking of cars, as it creates a larger number of parking spaces. Some cities have utilized angled parking on-street (as compared to off-street parking facilities). This has been done mostly in residential, retail and mixed use areas where additional parking compared to parallel parking is desired and traffic volumes are lower. Most angled parking is design in a head-in configuration while a few cities (Seattle, Portland, and Baltimore are examples) have some back-in angled parking (typically on hills or low traffic volume streets).

Angle parking, known as echelon parking in Britain, is considered dangerous by cycling organisations, especially in the head-in configuration, but unwelcome in either form. When comparing to parallel parking:

1. There is a significant risk to cyclists from vehicles reversing out, as approaching bicycles are in the blind spot of the reversing and turning vehicles.[1].
2. Longer vehicles project further into the road; this can inconvenience/endanger other road users,
3. The “surplus” road space which enables angle parking could also be used for bicycle lanes.

Hence organisations such as the Cyclists Touring Club are usually opposed to all proposed echelon parking schemes.
[edit] Other parking methods
An illustration of Anderson ad-hoc parking method, that does not save space, but allows all the vehicles to leave simultaneously.

Besides these basic modes of motor vehicle parking, there are instances where a more ad hoc approach to arranging motor vehicles is appropriate. For example, in parts of some large cities, such as Chicago, where land is expensive and therefore parking space is at a premium, there are parking lots for motor vehicles where the driver leaves the keys to the vehicle with an attendant who arranges vehicles so as to maximize the number of vehicles that can be parked in the lot. Vehicles may be packed up to five vehicles deep in combinations of perpendicular and/or parallel parking with limited circulation aisles for the parking attendant. Such arrangements are known as attendant parking. When the lot or facility is provided to serve the customers of a business, it is considered valet parking.

Inner city parking lots are often temporary, the operators renting land which is vacant pending the construction of a new office building. Some inner city lots are equipped with individual lifts, allowing cars to be stored above each other.

Another ad hoc arrangement is tandem parking. This is sometimes done with residential motor vehicle parking where two motor vehicles park nose-to-end in tandem. The first motor vehicle does not have independent access, and the second motor vehicle must move to provide access. As with attendant parking, the purpose is to maximize the number of motor vehicles that can park in a limited space.

Another more complex type of ad hoc parking was created in response to problems of vehicles jamming or backing into each other in parking lots that had large numbers of vehicles leaving at the same time. A parking lot that used this method has one entrance and one exit. The first vehicles park in marked spots facing the exit, and the next vehicles park behind the first cars in tandem, leaving an aisle between every two rows. While it doesn’t technically save space, (about the same amount of space would be used if angle parking was used) it allows large numbers of vehicles to exit the parking lot at the same time efficiently because there is nobody backing out; in addition, the aisles allow vehicles to leave the event early.