Students park it to win it

In spirit of the summer Olympics this year, four students were selected to participate in a parallel parking competition. The students were asked to parallel park in between two cars of the other competitors, making the pressure of the successful parallel parking even more intense. 

Parallel parking is one of the most daunting skills for a driver to master. The competitors were junior Sana Ali and seniors Ankita Chadha, Sasan Saadat and Tyler Bakke.

The participants were scored based on speed, confidence of driving and overall quality of the parking job on a scale of 1 through 5 (1 being worst, 5 being best). 

In first place was senior Saadat, second place was Ali, and third was Bakke. Chadha was disqualified due to incompletion of the parking job.

Bakke was first to parallel park in the high school parking lot. He used Chadha’s car (1994 740il BMW), which he was not familiar with, immediately giving him a disadvantage. Another disadvantage was that Chadha’s car, being longer than most cars, gave him a harder time squeezing into the tight spot.

“I thought it I could have done much better if I had my own car, but that was the best I could do with Ankita’s car,” said Bakke.

However, Bakke gave his full effort and came out with a score of 4 for speed, 3 for confidence and 3 for overall parking job. 

Next was Ali, who drives a 2012 Ford Escape XLS, a medium-sized, maneuverable car. She has had her license since December 2011, but has only parallel parked once before. “I had practiced once with my driving instructor, but I [only] vaguely remember her instruction,” Ali said.

Ali took her time adjusting into the correct position to reverse. Her patience and perseverance paid off, scoring a 3 in speediness, 4 in confidence and 4 in overall parking job.

  Chadha was next to parallel park. Having only had her license for three months, Chadha felt like a novice compared to other more experienced drivers. 

Chadha was, unfortunately, unable to complete her attempt, which disqualified her from the competition; she was not given a score.

“As I was parallel parking, I felt very nervous and scared as I hoped I wouldn't hit the other cars or the curb. I also didn't realize how hard parallel parking actually is,” Chadha said.

Although she was unable to complete the challenge, Chadha gained new knowledge from this experience.

Unlike Chadha, Saadat, the winner of the competition, breezed through the parking job. Even though it did not show in his driving, Sadaat felt uneasy before coming into the competition. 

“I was a little nervous with the competition. I had no notion of the other drivers’ capabilities so this made me a little wary,” said Saadat. 

He scored a 4 for speediness, 4 for confidence and 5 for the overall quality of the job itself.

For Saadat, the most difficult aspect of the competition was the pressure of the other drivers watching him. However, the pressure was not enough to steer him wrong as he scored the highest scores.

“I feel really pleased with myself, [but] I cannot credit the win entirely to my superb parking abilities,” Saadat said. “My Box (Scion xB) has a very comfortable shape that fits into parking spaces with the ease of the square piece in Tetris.” 

Saadat offers advice to novice drivers learning how to parallel park successfully, “Sit up straight, utilize your mirrors, and don’t let staring onlookers shake your confidence.”