The Student Room Group

Reverse Bay parking @ Southport test centre (picture included)

I will be having my practical test at southport in 3 weeks. I done some bay parking without my instructor today on my dads fiat punto, but it werent great; the manouevere itself was fine, but i was struggline to park between the 2 white lines.

Part of the problem was not being able to see the white lines appear on the Punto's mirrors which made it really difficult to judge whether i was on the lines.

My dad said the fact that the punto is a low car, it makes seeing the lines in the mirrors more difficult to see as reference points, is this kinda true?

i will be attempting the practical in a nissan note - a more bigger car but certainly not large, it should hopefully be easier because its higher hence better use of mirrors as reference points, right?

Any advice is appreciated, here is the southport park bay - does this look difficult?





p.s. i think its easier to reverse bay park when there are 2 cars either side
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by BarBar-John
I will be having my practical test at southport in 3 weeks. I done some bay parking without my instructor today on my dads fiat punto, but it werent great; the manouevere itself was fine, but i was struggline to park between the 2 white lines.

Part of the problem was not being able to see the white lines appear on the Punto's mirrors which made it really difficult to judge whether i was on the lines.

My dad said the fact that the punto is a low car, it makes seeing the lines in the mirrors more difficult to see as reference points, is this kinda true?

i will be attempting the practical in a nissan note - a more bigger car but certainly not large, it should hopefully be easier because its higher hence better use of mirrors as reference points, right?

Any advice is appreciated, here is the southport park bay - does this look difficult?





p.s. i think its easier to reverse bay park when there are 2 cars either side


Could you not move the mirror angle to face downwards in the Punto? My instructor told me that just for the manoeuvre, you could make adjustments to the mirror angle (I think he meant just for the bay park :s-smilie: ). I never needed it in the Citroen DS3 I was learning in but it was handy to know.
Reply 2
would you be able to do that on the driving test though? and tell the examiner to do it for the left mirror too?
"It is acceptable to adjust the mirrors before a manoeuvre on a driving test if it is to make the manoeuvre safer by providing better observation. Although this is acceptable, it is perhaps not advised due to a learner forgetting to re-set the mirrors when the manoeuvre has been completed."

Besides, I think if you do the bay parking manoeuvre, it will be at the start of the test, so point your mirrors down before the test, and you will be ready for it. If he says "pull away and take a left" or whatever, then while the car is still secured you can adjust them for normal driving.
Original post by BarBar-John
would you be able to do that on the driving test though? and tell the examiner to do it for the left mirror too?


No it's fine to do so. See the above post.

Also, I had electric mirrors so I controlled everything from my side.
It's perfectly fine to ask the passenger to change the position of your mirrors to the optimum spot. At the end of the day, the mirrors are not only there to see lines on the road, but to see people and objects.

The parking bays look easy enough.
Reply 6
Try leaning forward when you're doing the parking. As you lean forward the position of your eyes relative to the mirrors raises, thus lowering the image in the mirror. I can see the lines just fine if I lean forward, even with the mirrors adjusted properly for normal driving.
Original post by Nuffles
Try leaning forward when you're doing the parking. As you lean forward the position of your eyes relative to the mirrors raises, thus lowering the image in the mirror. I can see the lines just fine if I lean forward, even with the mirrors adjusted properly for normal driving.


This is great advice - much better than than adjusting your mirrors all the time

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