Neighbors spar over limited parking space, both end up getting warnings from parking enforcement: 'Don't force me to parallel park!'

Parallel parking can spark the kind of anxiety that one wants to avoid at all costs. Sometimes, it's inevitable, and if you live in a densely populated city like New York, you probably are intimately aware of that inevitability. That being said, if most drivers could conceivably avoid having to parallel park, they will, and who wouldn't? It's beneficial for the health and safety of all, and in many cases, it could take just as much time to find a regular parking space as it could to go through the potentially arduous parallel parking process. 

As a New Yorker, parallel parking was a required part of the roast test. I remember anxiously dreading that part of the road test, which was almost always left for last. Despite practicing perfectly countless times beforehand, my parallel parking job on the big day left much to be desired. In short, it was definitely not close enough to the curb, and I wish I could have had a do-over, yet somehow, I still passed. The truth of the matter is that I've rarely had to parallel park since… like most folks, I avoid it at all costs.