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Science

Reverse Parking Made Easy 58

Posted by michael from the engage-autopilot dept.
dsmalle writes "Dr. Rebecca Hoyle from Surrey University in England has derived a formula for reverse parking your car. A lot of insurance companies would welcome an initiative to automate parking using this formula I guess. I'm sure somebody must have tried to do this before, so why don't we see this in cars?" New York drivers know that a space that's the length of your car plus six inches is plenty of room. :)
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Reverse Parking Made Easy More

Reverse Parking Made Easy

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  • Good googleemooglee we are going to have every man this side of the Hudson trying to squeeze a H2 into a space the size of a honda....

    • Re:Car length + 6 inches? (Score:4, Funny)

      by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @08:16AM (#5788815) Homepage Journal

      Don't forget the extra senses available to urban parkers.

      Namely, instead of just limiting yourself to visual cues to determine the distance between your car and the bounding cars, you can use your internal accelerometer to sense a slight bump when you get sufficiently close to the other car.

      If you're in hurry, you can use acoustic senses, too. There will a nice "bonk" sound as your car meets the next one.

      Finally, in some cases it is possible to nudge adjoining cars over just enough to create space for your car. When you do this, though, make sure that no pedestrians are between you and the car to be nudged.

  • From the Article: Motorists will need a degree in maths to understand Dr Hoyle's formula, which reads: p=r-w/2,g)-w+2r+b,f )-w+2r-fg max((r+w/2)+f,(r+w/2)+b)-((2r),(r+w/2+k)).

    Well, journalists need a few opening parentheses, so we can understand the formula.

    • Okay, I checked several articles on this, and this is the only that even tries to put down the formula. They all give the algorithm for parking, but forget the actual result of the formula, "the distance from the parallel car at the outset (p)".
    • Not only the opening parentheses, but it looks like some function names were left out too.

      What does "r-w/2,g)-w+2r+b,f)" mean? If they're not argument lists, then why the commas?

      Also what does "-fg max(...)" mean? Is there supposed to be something between 'fg' and 'max'?

      Again: "-((2r),(r+w/2+k))"?

      Lots of holes in the "formula". Then again, I don't have "... a degree in maths ...".

      Just to be clear: I'm criticizing the reporter, not the researcher. If the reporter doesn't know the facts of the

  • Find a space. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Atzanteol ( 99067 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @07:17AM (#5788414) Homepage
    FIND a space that's at least one and a half times as long as your car.
    Obviously she's not from a large U.S. city. I need a formula for *this* part alone!
    • Obviously she's not from a large U.S. city. I need a formula for *this* part alone!

      No shit dude. Christ, my grandmother could park a car in that and she's dead. The real skill lies in parking in a space that's 6 inches longer than the diagonal of your car, which is effectively how long your car is while you're midway through parking.

      Clearly, this guide is for women. Any guy who can't park in a space 1.5 carlengths long needs to have an "F" in the gender on his license.

  • Maybe those mathmatic types dont know that is's spelled CURB not KERB, lol

    • Re:Good god learn how to spell (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      >>Maybe those mathmatic types...

      that's mathEmatic types.

      And "curb" is the wrong spelling, or perhaps rather the wrong word. "kerb" is the original usage in England; Americans started using "curb" because the road-edging is supposed to curb the cars from going onto the pedestrian walk.

      Winston Churchill pointed out that the UK and America are "two countries separated by a common language".
    • Maybe those |mathematical| types don|'|t know that i|t|'s spelled CURB|,| not KERB|.|

      Local spelling differences aside, they seem to have a better grasp on basic grammar and proofreading.

      -legolas
    • kerb = the edge between the pavement and the roadway.

      curb = put a stop to.

      Using both words in sentences: "My sister often strikes the kerb when parking her car." - "Judicious use of explosives would soon curb that habit!"

      Whilst we're at it, meter = instrument for measuring something, metre = the unit of distance.

  • Paralell (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @07:36AM (#5788541) Homepage Journal
    I thought this article was going to talke about backing into a "normal" parking spot. But apparently people don't seem to know what a paralell park is. It's not a reverse park.

    Personally, I think if you can't park anywhere, at anytime, then you shouldn't be driving. United States hand out driver's licenses too easily. The driving test should be a rigorous test of skill. Only extremely skilled drivers should be allowed to get behind the wheel. A system like that would have numerous obvious positive effects. One of them would be that driving would be a lot more fun. Mainly because you have confidence in your own ability as well as the ability of others. You wouldn't have to be constantly watching out for what every other car is doing, but instead be able to have fun worrying about your own driving.

    On another slightly more unrelated note, speed limits are bs. Speed limits make the roads less safe in order to provide revenue for the states. Most people drive comfortable at about 85 mph (on the highway). If the speed limit was 85, not many people would feel comfortable driving faster than that. Presently with speed limits like 65 and 75 people feel that they are still in control of their car when they go over the limit. What results is some people who refuse to go over the limit and some people who always go 5 or 10 or even 15 mph over the limit. I think its obvious that it would be safer if every car on the road was driving at about 85mph as opposed to some driving 65 and some driving as high as 90. Mixing fast + slow cars disrupts the traffic and makes thing less-safe.

    • Re:Paralell (Score:3, Funny)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 )
      Personally, I think if you can't park anywhere, at anytime, then you shouldn't be driving.

      Yeah, I thought that too. Right up until the point I lost my license for repeated double parking alongside fire hydrants... ;)

    • While it is true that most of the danger in driving on the highway results from people driving at different speeds, there are other dangers. While you may feel in complete control of your car at 85 mph, I would argue that your senses have deluded you. Cars are governed by laws of physics in how they behave on the road. Using these laws, road engineers come up with maximum safe speeds. While thses speeds are not necesarily the actual speed limits posted, they are not exceedingly high above the posted lim
    • You neglect the problem of people who are capable of passing a rigorous driving test, and people who are always using those skills on the road.
      I'm guessing that some people who can pass a rigorous driving exam will still want to sing alond to the radio and talk on the phone and generally do things behind the wheel that take away from their driving concentration.

    • On higher speed limits (Score:4, Insightful)

      by forged ( 206127 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @11:33AM (#5790615) Homepage Journal
      I'll second that. Not only you make good points, but I'll go further by saying that most speed limits were set some 30 years ago, when cars weren't nearly as safe as what they are now: think about airbags, crash-tests, engineering on the car body (basically made softer) to avoid killing the driver, etc.
    • On another slightly more unrelated note, speed limits are bs. Speed limits make the roads less safe in order to provide revenue for the states. Most people drive comfortable at about 85 mph (on the highway).

      You drive a car, don't you.

      The current speed limts are more than fast enough for a bus or SUV in bad weather.

      Rather than appealing speed limits, I'd rather have the "revenue" given to the federal government, and a federally funded program started to produce uniform speed limit enforcement in each sta

    • Paralell? (Score:5, Funny)

      by trailerparkcassanova ( 469342 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:50PM (#5792212)
      Personally, I think if you can't spell anywhere, at anytime, then you shouldn't be typing. United States hand out keyboards too easily. The spelling test should be a rigorous test of skill. Only extremely skilled spellers should be allowed to get behind the keyboard A system like that would have numerous obvious positive effects. One of them would be that reading would be a lot more fun. Mainly because you have confidence in your own ability as well as the ability of others. You wouldn't have to be constantly watching out for what every other word is, but instead be able to have fun worrying about your own spelling.
    • Most people drive comfortable at about 85 mph (on the highway).

      Obviously, you haven't driven an old American four-banger with only 90HP on the highway. Often, simply driving the speed limit is hard enough in the U.S.

      I disagree that speed limits are unnecessary. One often overlooks aspect of speed is the simple formula: E = 1/2mv^2. 85MPH is potentially much much more dangerous than 65MPH when you need to stop or maneuver around a suprising obstacle (tire carcass, deer, etc.). Even those 5-star safety
    • At least in California, the speed limits are reset every ten years on surface streets. A survey is done on a road (ever driven over those black wires connected to a little box on the side of the road?) and the speeds of all of the drivers for a certain period of time are logged. The new limit is set at 85th percentile?85 percent of dirvers drive at or above that speed. The law allows for certain deductions to the posted limit, such as the presence of driveways or schools, but generally, the limit is how fas
      • Also, in California (oh, WHY am I telling you people this?) if the speed limit is set artificially low (for example, if neighbourhood residents complain and the limit is reduced from 35mph to 25mph), and you are ticketed for going above the posted limit but below the actual 85th percentile limit, there is precedent for having the ticket dismissed.

        For this reason, most communities either keep to the 85th percentile speed limits or put other traffic slowing devices (called "traffic calming" in Alhambra, CA)
    • From Article FIND a space that's at least one and a half times as long as your car.

      Yeah, Right! I'm happy with six inches on each side in New York, the real problem is getting out of the spot when you have 2 inches in front and the car behind you is sitting on your bumper. The the "trick" is that in first gear you can push each car an extra couple inches, then you have enough space to get out little by little. If one of the cars is an SUV or has a car alarm you can push it 6 or 8 inches, you shouldn't dr

      • I'm happy with six inches on each side in New York, the real problem is getting out of the spot when you have 2 inches in front and the car behind you is sitting on your bumper.

        I once literally had both cars touching my car. Somehow I still managed to get out. Probably had something to do with the fact that neither car was there when I parked there, so I had no moral problems with the bump bump method.

        Personally, I think if you can't park anywhere, at anytime, then you shouldn't be driving.

        Then we

  • Win for women? Yeah, right (Score:4, Funny)

    by seinman ( 463076 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @07:36AM (#5788543) Homepage Journal
    If women can't even park their cars right, how the hell are they going to compute (p=r-w/2,g)-w+2r+b,f )-w+2r-fg max((r+w/2)+f,(r+w/2)+b)-((2r),(r+w/2+k)) on the fly??
  • My roommate always tells me never to turn the steering wheel when the car is not moving. It's very bad for the tyres and the steering mechanism he says. Then I ask him if he ever parked a car in Utrecht or Amsterdam (two busy cities in Holland). No, he has never done that. I don't know about you but I can't park a car in a tight spot without steering while the car is not moving.

  • Reverse Parking? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Um, isn't "reverse parking" called "driving"?

    Or is this about backing into a parking space?
  • Hell, in Cambridge/Boston (and I presume any crowded city), you will see cars all the time that show the signs of not needing a space that is longer than the length of your car.
    It can even be a few inches shorter.

    There were multiple times I've come out to see someone squeezed up against my car and another car on the other side of them.

    So presumably, as long as your car has modern plastic/springy bumpers, and you don't care about it (specifically the transmission I would guess), then just cram it in to the spot and enjoy your parking spot.

    Granted this will bend your license plate, crack your bumpers, perhaps ding your fenders, and likely lose you some paint... but hey, it is worth it to park.

    Usually you see this technique on Honda Civics and other cars of that size and price range.
    The big BMW/Mercedes/etc seem to like their cars too much.
    Although you also tend to see a lot of Jeeps doing it - they are higher up, so it usually does less damage to them and more damage to others.

    Ahh, the joys of parallel parking.
  • the most annoying mistake I see when watching people parallel park is when they come in too sharp and hit the curb with their back right wheel (assuming parking on R side) and to correct they turn the steering hard right, pull forward, and then hard left to backup again. Because you steer with your FRONT wheels, and your rear wheels can turn at different rates, a hard turn like that doesn't even move your back right wheel away from the curb, so you'll make ZERO progress. Instead, people need to learn to k

  • Well known fact (Score:1, Funny)

    by r84x ( 650348 )
    I don't know how this will help, because it is a well known fact that womwn are less-abled not only in parking, but in the mathematical arts.

  • It's easy, with the right car (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @12:27PM (#5791261)

    My folks' volvo has a turning radius of slightly larger than 30 feet- and it's a full size wagon. Volvos are famous for wide steering angle. It also has exceptional visibility, due to enormous windows all around.

    I can parallel-park it in about 6 seconds flat, in ONE move(no forward/backwards business), to within two inches of the curb, provided I've got 12 inches of room.

    Some people just don't "get" "how" cars "go" backwards, despite how simple it really is. Of course, I had spent most of my childhood summers driving a outboard motorboat, so I had driving backwards etc down pat(boats are far trickier, since you often have to VERY quickly apply force to stop moving in a particular direction; try parallel parking a boat); trailers are still a little tricky because they have a lot of "conditions" to their movement when going backwards. In all cases, you've got to think about how the car is going to move, and more importantly, where the non-steering end of the car is going to end up based on your actions, because that's most of the game(-especially- with trailers).


  • The simplest solution is to buy an incredibly small car [smart.com].
  • I can't take credit for coming up with a formula like that, but in one of my courses in college we designed an algorithm to park a robotic car.

    Actually, all our source and some videos are on my website... http://djonce.dyndns.org/pburgh_projects.htm [dyndns.org]

  • How stunt drivers do it. (Score:3, Funny)

    by TheLink ( 130905 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @03:26PM (#5802872) Journal
    Get front wheel drive manual car with a very very good handbrake.

    Head towards the parking spot at a fair speed, as perpendicular to the spot as you can. Swerve car and pull handbrake and then brake and counter steer so that you neatly skid and slide in sideways.

    With this method you can park in a spot that's practically the same length as your car - just depends on how accurate you are.

    Getting out requires a bit more space - the length of the space must be slightly more than the diagonal length of your car. Pull handbrake to max, turn steering wheel max (to lock) towards side you want to exit from. Stomp on clutch, red line engine, release clutch, burn rubber and gradually spin car out of space.

    Not recommended in uncontrolled environments ;).
  • Googled for more information and found the following two articles in German
    Mathematikerin entwickelt Formel zum Einparken [lycos.de]

    Frauen entdecken das Einparken [maennerseiten.de]

    the second has a different version of the formula:
    p=r-w/2, g)-w+2r+b, f)-w+2r-fg max((r+w/2)+f, (r+w/2)+b)£min((2r), (r+w/2+k))

    Still doesn't make a whole lot of sense with unopened brackets and commas that don't appear to be separating parameters of a function.
  • Caption: "TIGHT FIT: A female mathematician..."
    A tight fit eh...

    Mod me down...

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