I think this car is gorgeous inside and out, whether or not I like it more than the A8 and 7-Series remains to be seen, as I have yet to drive it. I know my favorite in this class is most certainly the S550, but if this is as decently sporting as this review says it is, the LS460 might take a good second or third place behind the MB, but only time will tell. It looks great and is as luxurious as ever, and the touring package sounds like it rounds things out.

The stock calibrations are not in line with the car’s competition, target market, or the rest of car’s contemporary flavor. I’ll second that Touring + short wheelbase combination. Hurry up, Lexus!

TTAC is certainly international.

As a motorcyclist/scooterist that commutes in Boston traffic, I get to see just how piss-poor most people’s perceptions of how large their vehicles are is…and I take advantage of that fact by riding my 2 wheeled vehicles through the enormous gaps people leave.

On the flip side…seeing a skilled CDL driver pilot a frickin’ *semi* (gas truck drivers are the best..gentle and smooth) through Beantown traffic is just amazing.

1. Bring your car’s rear bumper even with the car in front’s rear bumper.
1a. STOP!
2. Turn the wheel over until lock (while stopped!)
3. Begin reversing slowly, until your car is at a forty-five degree angle.
3a. STOP!
4. Straighten the wheels
5. Reverse slowly until your outside rear-view mirror is inline with the car-in-front’s outside rearview mirror.
5a. STOP!
6. Turn the wheel over in the opposite direction until lock.
7. Reverse, slowly easing into your final parking position.

Done.

This really works everytime if you dont’ skip a step. The most common failure point when I give this trick to novices, is their failure to STOP! during the wheel turning maneuvers. [Once you're experienced, this becomes more flowing, and you will be figuring out when and how much to turn the wheel. But the above works every time if applied to the letter.]

I’d love to hear from those not used to parallel parking how the above works for you.

Cheers!

– Kman.

While it’s true that driving fast safely and parallel parking require different skill sets, both sets of skills are based on, among other factors, vehicle awareness.

By vehicle awareness I mean knowing exactly where the 4 corners of your vehicles are, AND how your steering, throttle and brake inputs affect the location of the 4 corners. This is different, but overlaps with, understanding vehicle dynamics.

If one is below average at parallel parking, how could can one’s vehicle awareness possibly be?

In my opinion, D1 and rally car drivers have the best vehicle awareness, given that they work with the least space. Maybe we can poll these groups and see whether they can parallel park.

Many times I have been tempted to leave a note: “Learn to park, @$$h0le. It’s just like when you learned to color in grade school – don’t go over the lines.”

You should come out here to Gaborone, Botswana (that’s in Southern Africa, folks) where a generation of new drivers has yet to learn the art of parking in a demarcated BAY. At the local mall (there are only 4 or 5 in the whole city!), it’s not uncommon to see a few large SUVs/trucks with at least two of their wheels outside the demarcated area. The random (aim-and-pray?) manner of parking is hilarious to witness.

Anyway, the general lack of driver skill pales into insignificance when compared to other road hazards, including donkeys wandering over the “highways” at night. Donkeys are found near roads because the rain run-off leads to the growth of “some” grass at the verges.

What makes the sport of night-donkey-dodging even more exciting is that they do not move out the way AT ALL. I couldn’t understand why they didn’t respond to the horn of an oncoming vehicle until a local told me that they all had their front legs TIED TOGETHER…to prevent them running away…

Of course, this makes PERFECT sense in a country where the concept of a fence along the border of a farm is unheard of – and that’s because none of the land belongs to anybody, which is a completely different story.

Nice car (needs a donkey-spotter, though), good review. btw, What’s it like to drive on gravel? Oh, never mind.

Even today, when I want a good laugh, I will watch someone try to parallel park into a slot that would 3 cars in Europe. It can take 15 minutes and 8 or 9 moves to park a car sometimes.

I don’t blame them though. Western Australia is the largest state in the world. And it is one of the least populated areas on the planet. So worrying about parking space is usually never an issue.

Also, because W.A. is generally a flat, empty, warm region, I’ve noticed that they don’t know how to curb their wheel when parking on hills. Nor do they know anything about driving on ice or snow.

Perhaps that’s just me though – I don’t want those six summers and weekends of driving forklifts to go to waste.

If you want to improve your parking skills, get a job in a warehouse. For now, skip the Lexus.

It really has nothing to do with being American, just what kind of area you live in.

Just today some genius panic braked on I-95, 3 lanes away from the exit and started to cut over. Everyone reacted to differing levels of success, but rather than jamming on the brakes or swerving like most of the other people nearby, I know where the exact corners of my car are and was able to smoothly thread myself through the clutter, into next lane and keep going without any drama.

The key parallel parking is not unlike personal enlightenment : know yourself (your potential and your limitations – not to mention how much space you take up, fatty). Its pretty simple after that.

About parallel parking, years ago one of the mainstream auto magazines (I think it was Road & Track) had a decidedly sexist article in which it was suggested that people who were unable to parallel park suffered from a form of distorted body image. More specifically, it was suggested that certain drivers (mostly women) had an image of themselves as being petite flowers when in fact they were not so petite. Somehow this distorted body image carries over to the driver’s image of his or her car. The driver underestimates the physical size of his or her car and is therefore unable to parallel park it in most parking places.

Now all I have to learn is how to park like the Audi commercial posted by BlueBrat.

As I was saying, if the DMV required realistic parallel parking test (length of parking space approx. one and a half times the length of test taker’s vehicle, very reasonable), traffic congestion will be drastically reduced in Southern California.

Of course, this requires testing to be conducted in the vehicle actually registered to the test taker (for retests on expiration of license) and other mechanics to prevent people from “passing” in an Aveo and then driving around in a Suburban.

I have the feeling that if you can’t parallel park you aren’t really qualified to drive. Not necessarily because you always have to parallel park, but because it requires a degree of spacial awareness of your car that you need in just about every tight driving situation, like passing on a crowded freeway. And hey the stars are back! Yaaay stars!

When space aliens land and appoint Mr Farago official Dictator/King/Grand-Poo-bah of North America, we piston-heads will be able to rejoice in a driving-skills based system of licensing and enforcement. So keep star gazing, but don’t hold your breath…

wsn:
May 21st, 2007 at 11:59 am

So, if you can’t find the square root of a number without a calculator, you aren’t really qualified to work in a science/engineering field?

I think a good engineer would have an interest in how it’s done. Those who use square roots regularly get quick approximations in their heads via clever factoring and the fact that sqrt(x*x+a) is close to x+a/2x.
Ex: sqrt(920) = sqrt (900 + 20) = 30 + 20/60.