OT - USA Car Parks

[JohnP]

Odd how they always seem to have curbs or rails that you nose your wheels up to - but we never see them in the UK.

Are they mandated in some way in the USA?

[Andy Burns]

I occasionally see them, e.g.

[Steve Walker]

Probably okay with large spaces in US car parks, but UK spaces are often small and longer cars either stick out at the end of the spaces or overhang that Kerb - which if you go in nose first (for the boot to be accessible for loading) can mean damage to a low hanging front valance.

I have a bog standard, Zafira B, the rubber edge of the valance was ripped loose when reversing away from overhanging such a kerb. As this was nose in parking on a high-street, being parked further back would have left the rear end stuck out in the traffic!

Stupidly, Vauxhall attached the rubber to the rest of the bumper on tabs, that rip off when caught, but the tabs that break off are part of the bumper itself and not the rubber strip!

[Jimmy Stewart ...]

[Jimmy Stewart ...]

you think that is bad...I remember seeing this in 1979 .....

[Paul]

You obviously have not seen what kind of humanity drives in those car parks.

The size of the bollards, provides a hint as to what the company thinks of its clientele.

Paul

[Jimmy Stewart ...]

wumin'

that is because lazy bastards will park as near the entrance as possible....

[Jimmy Stewart ...]

that too

[Andrew]

Also makes ram-raiding more difficult, which could be their main purpose.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Parking nose in used to be very common on wide US roads. And most seemed to do it with the front wheels touching the kerb. Old habits die hard. But many non US cars simply ain't designed for this.

[tim...]

Parking nose in is mandatory in the US because cars don't (usually) have front number plates

And working back from the fact that you know everyone is going to park nose in means that you can put in these "bumps" in the right place for an "average" car.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Not quite sure why that makes a difference? And not all US streets are wide enough to allow this anyway?

It's just the same in UK car parks. Where you can have a 'pavement' in the middle between two rows of cars - my local Tesco is like that. So if parking nose in - like you'd do to get access to the boot - you just have to take care.

>

[NY]

One of the problems with a lot of bollards at the end of a parking space is that they aren't tall enough. If you reverse in, or if you drive in forwards and your car has a long bonnet, there comes a point when the bollard disappears below the bottom of the relevant windscreen as you get fairly close. Then you have to guess how close you are. If only the bollard was made about 4 feet tall you would always be able to see it, and so judge when you were getting too close. It's OK if you have a reversing camera, but not all cars have one - and it doesn't help if you drive in forwards. And parking sensors usually only "see" objects at the corners of the bumpers: something that is dead central goes undetected.

Of course even a tall object *can* go unnoticed :-( Both my wife and I have reversed at very low speed into (in my case) a road sign, and (in my wife's case) a telegraph pole that the parking sensor didn't pick up. And in both cases the pole was right in front of the sensor (*), so it *should* have been picked up, and it was in the gap between the rear window and the field of view of the door mirror, hidden by the C pillar., at the moment of impact.

(*) The telegraph pole actually knocked the sensor back in the bumper, proving that it was central to it.

[fred]

My problem was the post type bollard was central to the rear of the car and the reverse sensor didn't pick it up. Expensive bloody repair