Tight Spaces

A VW Polo, for reference, is 1901 mm wide, or to be less precise about 190 centimeters (74 inches).

I sat on a bench in the middle of the Mainz shopping district yesterday, with a shop or two in front of me, and this two-door glass entry.

A guy drove past the end of the street, into the walking zone and pulled precisely up to the door.  He was in a VW Polo, which is one of the smallest cars you can buy in Germany.

So I sat and watched him open the glass doors and proceed ever-so-gracefully through....with maybe two inches of room on both sides of the entry way as 'free'.  He had to pass these doors, and a end point of the building.....all of which I could observe.  There at the end, you could notice a two car garage that lay maybe five meters (16 feet) beyond the end of the structure.  The garage door that was open.....was to the right and I judged it just about an impossible thing for the car to exit....twist.....and make it into the garage entry.

Well....as he exited the back of this hallway....you could see him making an extreme twist of the steering wheel and with maybe an inch between the car and the building concrete structure.....he twisted and twisted.....until he pulled into the car garage.  It was a feat of precise driving.

The thing that I pondered upon....when tomorrow comes and you have to back the car out.....will he repeat this whole process, and turn at precisely the right point, and back-out of this tight parking spot?

Parking in urbanized areas of Germany is hard to come by.  When you do find an apartment that offers parking....you seize it....no matter how difficult it fits into your lifestyle.  In this case, the guy has a remarkable few cars of the right width and length....that would fit into this parking scheme.  I'd take a guess that fewer than eight such cars would fit his parking situation.

And to go through this day after day, without bumping the car against concrete?    It would try my patience.