I suck at parallel parking

Fortunately, I rarely have to park between two cars on my street. When I do, they're usually so far apart that I can easily drive forward into the space.

When they're a little closer together, I can try to parallel park, but I usually end up about a mile from the curb.

If they're close enough together to be the size of a regular parking space, I drive around the corner and park on the cross street.

It sucks, and I've tried to remedy this before with actual people explaining how to do it. Sadly, however, I am a very bad student and people get frustrated and then I just give up.

This weekend, I tried to learn by reading and watching instructional videos. I thought that if I had a well-narrated explanation, something that fits my own cognitive process better, I'd have more luck.

I viewed countless videos and read countless narratives, and discovered that there are at least two popular techniques (the two-turns version and the turn, straight, turn version). You would think that this would double my odds of getting it right. That's what I thought, anyway.

Then I found this neat flash game, which tests your grasp of the concept and lets you practice. Or, if you're like me, it forces you face the sad fact that you might never, ever be able to do it, due to some strange personal cognitive/spatial/something deficit. I played that damn thing for over an hour and mostly hit the curb and the two cars. I did get the car parked a few times without incident, but this seemed more like a fluke than an accomplishment.

Here's the thing: I have a problem, both in video games and in real life, with driving backwards. I can't figure out which way to turn the wheel. Even when I know, intellectually, which way it's supposed to go, I really have to think about it to understand why it works.

This probably seems ridiculous to you. Of course, if you turn your wheels to the right, you'll go to the right, whether you're going forwards or backwards and no matter which way you're looking! Duh! All I can say is that I'm glad it makes sense to everyone else. There's some disconnect between the part of my brain that understands that, and the part of my brain that understands what I see out my rear window.

Swapping things from left to right isn't a problem. I can easily write backwards. I can easily drive a car on the left side of the road with the steering wheel on the right (unless the road is really narrow and full of sharp pointy rocks, but that's another story). But put the car in reverse, and I'm lost.

Another problem is being able to figure clearances. Objects in mirrors are closer than they appear, but objects in windows are evidently a lot further away than they look through the window. I discover this when I'm parking in front of someone on the street. Time and again I'll back up as far as I dare, only to discover that I still had an insane amount of space to deal with. It's as if I don't how long the back of my car is. How can this still be a problem after 25 years of driving? Why can't I get past the incorrect belief that I'm going to hit a car that's 10 feet away? I do not understand!

Combine my confusing backwards left-and-right stuff with my apparent inability to judge distances, and you can see why this seems overwhelming.

I think there's a third obstacle, too, but I haven't figured out what it is. It's not just fear/anxiety, because I can't even manage it in a video game, where I can (and do) hit the other cars with impunity.

I'll try parallel parking again eventually, but I don't think I'll make much progress until I can deal with the backwards driving and/or the clearance issues.

(By the way, if you try the Flash game, let me know if you think it's a lot harder than the real thing. Maybe I let it discourage me more than it should.)