If you don’t have control over the finer movements of your car, parallel park is a pretty good way to weed it out. And if they don’t, you’re gonna fuck up harder in a place that actually matters.
Fuck up when it doesn’t matter so you don’t fuck up when it matters.
AFAIK, it’s mostly due to how the driving exams are structured.
First you have to pass the written exam. If you fail that, you don’t continue.
After the written exam is the parallel parking test. That’s done on-site. If you don’t pass that part, you don’t continue to the road test.
The road test is last; it’s up to the instructor where you go for that, but it usually is a route that covers various scenarios that were on the exam (4-way stops, crosswalks, speed transition zones, school zones, etc).
I’d guess it’s setup that way because of how many people fail the parallel parking test; best to do that in a controlled environment where there’s no risk to regular people’s cars out in the wild.
Edit: This probably varies state-by-state, too. I’m just describing how it was here.
What’s wrong with just driving through the nearby streets and searching for a fitting spot for parking?
If you don’t have control over the finer movements of your car, parallel park is a pretty good way to weed it out. And if they don’t, you’re gonna fuck up harder in a place that actually matters.
Fuck up when it doesn’t matter so you don’t fuck up when it matters.
AFAIK, it’s mostly due to how the driving exams are structured.
First you have to pass the written exam. If you fail that, you don’t continue.
After the written exam is the parallel parking test. That’s done on-site. If you don’t pass that part, you don’t continue to the road test.
The road test is last; it’s up to the instructor where you go for that, but it usually is a route that covers various scenarios that were on the exam (4-way stops, crosswalks, speed transition zones, school zones, etc).
I’d guess it’s setup that way because of how many people fail the parallel parking test; best to do that in a controlled environment where there’s no risk to regular people’s cars out in the wild.
Edit: This probably varies state-by-state, too. I’m just describing how it was here.