Posted on 05/20/2015 3:14:22 AM PDT by markomalley
If you listen closely you can almost hear a collective sigh of relief from 16 year olds across the state.
The reason – the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration officially removed parallel parking as a required test element on the driver’s license test on a statewide basis starting today.
According to Buel Young, spokesperson for the MVA, the administration determined that completing a two-point turn and backing up are similar enough to parallel parking to eliminate the parking element from the test.
“The MVA consistently evaluates its assessments of both the knowledge and skills tests. In analyzing the skills test, it was determined that the currently used 2-point reverse turn, when combined with the on-road portions or the test, adequately assessed the individual’s ability to operate the vehicle,” Young told MYMCMedia Tuesday.
You can find out more about the MVA tests here.
Young said parallel parking is still taught in driving schools.
“We encourage everyone to know how to do it,” he said.
Classic Maryland leftism: if a person can't meet the standards, lower the standards.
Dumbing down.
Might as well just tattoo your license number inside your lip at birth.
My wife would approve: she STILL can’t parallel park!
Seriously? Those procedures are trivial next to parallel parking. If they were going to drop a skill from the test, they should have dropped backing up and kept the far more difficult task of parallel parking.
As if dealing with Maryland drivers wasn't enough of a challenge already...
Let’s play bumper cars!
I can still do it.
No doubt pushed through by master parker- Eleanor Holmes Norton. Next to go, pull-in angle parking.
the sinister auto body lobby
Regardless of their reason, I think that parallel parking spaces are the most inefficient use of available road space out there. Unless you have absolutely no extra driving lane width available, angle-in parking is more efficient.
I can still parallel park, but don’t because there just aren’t that many of them around where I live any more. The only ones I see are at WalMart - where the handicappers have 10 feet on each end to pull in the van they’re supposed to be using (but don’t).
My wife still can’t reverse straight in the drive way let alone park between two vehicles.
She even questions how she passed her test years ago.
I did it with a tractor trailer, not sure if they still require it with a CDL A now though.
I don’t think this is about 16 year-olds; here in NJ there are masses of immigrants driving without a clue, and the “economic benefit” of having them here can’t be realized by car companies if they aren’t consuming (in this case, buying cars). A friend from India recently went back to visit his family, and he stressed that he had to get his license while he was there; when he returned he received a NJ drivers license by presenting his Indian license (he never took any test here). He is now driving a car on NJ roads without ever driving on the right side of the road or being tested for it.
Nothing being done today is for American 16 year-olds; there aren’t very many of them, and those feigning concern for them are selling their futures out today.
Huh??? How the heck are a two-point turn and backing up the same as parallel parking??????
“I aced parallel parking in a 78 Chrysler New Yorker, I think the car was bigger than the space between the poles...”
Yep, ‘73 Coronet Wagon for myself.
My Mother tells of when she got her driver’s license in WI during the late 1940’s.
Had to take the test with a standard shift car and one part of the test was a stop sign on a hill. You had to stop, look and then get going again without killing the engine or jerking the grader’s head off.
Each office used it’s own hill and she said kids were out there practicing all the time.
Been lowering the standards ever since....
Precisely.
Some of the worst drivers out there.
Is it just me? The older, boxier cars with larger windows were much easier to maneuver.
“... He is now driving a car on NJ roads without ever driving on the right side of the road or being tested for it...”
Found out years ago to get the same side drive as the traffic laws.
Was in a left side drive country for six months and had access to both right and left side drives.
A driver wants to be near the middle of the road. When driving a standard US car with the driver on the left you feel like you’re in the gutter and try and drift over to the right to get your body in the center of the road.
And after a couple of beers? The right side drive cars were popular after dark.
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