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.
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).
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??????
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....
Is it just me? The older, boxier cars with larger windows were much easier to maneuver.
One more reason why Maryland MVA is full of stupid people. I’ve been driving for 38 years and have parallel parked more in the six years I’ve lived in the cesspool than the 32 years previous combined.
Marylanders are statistically the second worst drivers in the nation, yet these idiots are dumbing down the requirements.
Par for the course for MVA. They define stupid. It once took me four trips and over nine hours (over the course of 3-4 weeks) to get a simple set of license plates.
IMHO... the parallel parking requirements have become stupid in Maryland. They aren’t anything like I learned (and passed on the first test). The right signal has to stay on the entire time. If it goes off.. you fail. You can’t turn your head around but have to use the mirrors instead. Turn your head around and you are failed. For anyone who parallels frequently.. try the old Maryland’s rules the next time you try it. Don’t take your two hands off the wheel at any point, don’t turn your head around, use the mirrors only and manage all of this without the turn signal ever going off. This is what most students failed at.. even if the parallel was done perfectly.
I learned in MoCo years ago but tbh.. there was a lot less traffic and aggressive drivers then. Students now have to become almost citified/expert drivers in most of the counties. I would rather them train more driving.. the ICC, night driving, interstate, rush hour etc... to be prepared then parallel. Just my opinion....
> a two-point turn and backing up are similar enough to parallel parking
Hahehehaha. Yeah right.
It's a skill I need when I have to do work in the people's republic of Ann Arbor.