Parking barriers

Forget the old prejudices about parallel parking. Women, it seems, are better at using space than men.

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This should put a few myths, not to mention, dare we say, family arguments, firmly to bed.

A wide-ranging survey in Britain by the car park firm NCP has revealed that contrary to perceived wisdom (male-perpetrated, no doubt) and countless jokes, women are actually better at parking their cars than are men.

Having observed 2,500 drivers across 700 parking spaces in Britain through covert surveillance, researchers came to the conclusion that while female drivers may take longer to park, they tend to leave their vehicles accurately positioned in the middle of a bay more than their male counterparts do.

The results will be sweet music to the ears of female drivers who for far too long have had to put up with being the butt of tired jokes about their lack of driving expertise.

But the advance of technology means that soon, even this long running gender dispute should become a thing of the past. In 2006, Lexus unveiled a vehicle that had the ability to parallel park itself. Since then, four other manufacturers - Ford, Lincoln, Mercury and Toyota -have all offered cars with similar capacities.

Surely it is a matter of time before this becomes a common feature in most cars. And then, not even men will have problems parallel parking.