Why does parallel parking only work when reversing.
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It’s because the vehicles we drive have front wheel steering. If you had a car with rear wheel staring, you could do a parallel park while traveling forward (and you wouldn’t be able to do one going in reverse).
Because it’s the front tires that turn. So whichever end goes in first, the other end will be oriented wrong so you’ll need to turn that end to make the car parallel. Since it’s the front tires that turn, you can only turn the front end of the car like that.
It’s because of where you are steering from. The back tires can’t move sideways at all to fit into the spot whereas the front tires can move sideways to an extent allowing you to roll them into the spot
Because the moving wheels are at the front of the car. If you move those into the spot first, there is nothing that will allow you to move the back of the car into the spot.
When you are driving normally it’s like pulling a cart. The front wheels pull the car behind you and steer. The rear wheels can only ever follow (mostly) within the path of the front wheels.
When you go into reverse, it’s more like pushing a wheelbarrow. You can more or less move the front end around while the back wheels don’t move much. So you can turn the front end, push the back end into the spot, and then simply push the back in as you manuever the front end around.
Because back of your car is like a big long tail of a wedding dress, you pull or push it to make it go somewhere, it doesn’t move by itself. So you put your tail to a place where it doesn’t need to move by backing and you correct yourself
Steering in the front. If you’ve ever driven a forklift, you know how different the maneuverability of a rear-steering vehicle is, and you probably also know exactly why automobiles have their steering in the front: velocity + rear steering = dangerous handling.
Because the front wheels are making the turns. If you go in front first the back wheels can’t do anything to get the rear in. Back first the front guides the back in, then puts the front in.
The reason cant parallel park going forward has zero to do with front steering or fwd, on a flat surface you can parallel park fine going forward or backwards, the issue is when you are parallel parking with a curb, you can’t pull forward over the curb to straighten your vehicle but you can straighten it when you reverse into the spot.
In the 80s, my family went through a Honda Prelude phase. They were the first of the brief four-wheel steering craze to be sold in the U.S.
My dim memory from reading the manual when I was younger was that the rear wheels would turn the same direction as the front until a certain threshold, at which point they would turn the opposite direction and really make a steep cut into a tight spot.
Hopefully a car buff or expert can fill in the gaps here.
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