Poll: Brits Spend Year Looking for Parking

What more proof do you need – Here is a poll that shows that drivers in the UK spend up to a year of their lives looking for parking.

Here are some results:

– 42 per cent of people – and 51 per cent of women – admit they will not attempt to park in a space if another car is waiting behind them;

– 23 per cent often get a passenger to do the parking for them;

– 44 per cent of people, and 48 per cent of women, have “lost” their car as they could not remember where they parked, with Birmingham motorists the most forgetful;

– 50 per cent have gone to the wrong floor or section of the car park to look for their vehicle, while 39 per cent of those have even attempted to get into someone else’s car, mistaking it for their own.

I would love to have a similar poll done here in the US. I suggest that parking is more difficult in the UK because the spaces are smaller. One might note that the average car is smaller, but even so, I think the problem is more daunting with a smaller space. This is particularly true in parking garages.

I also suggest that UK drivers may be less patient than US drivers, thus causing some consternation when a person is waiting for another to park. I really don’t see too much frustration during a parking situation, unless we are on the fourth go and the driver still can’t get the car in the space.

I reread the article and couldn’t determine if the “looking for lost car” time was factored into the “looking for parking” time. I did note that the survey was done by NCP, a UK parking operator, and wonder if that’s the reason “looking for a cheaper place to park” wasn’t listed as a major reason why people spend so long parking.

JVH