Parallel parking usually isn't that problematic; it is the parking garages where cars are parked next to eachother where most of the damage happens. I still got a dent to fix in my car from a visit to Paris last December. Speaking of the French: they have this odd behaviour to push cars in front and/or in the back of the car in order to make space for parallel parking. It doesn't go with a lot of violence but they do give the bumpers some practise. It is quite interesting to watch it happen.
Spanish is the same thing, that's why normally in Madrid you see small cheap hatchbacks all scuffed up. They park the cars and if the street is levelled they leave the car without parking brakes or a gear engaged. If you want to park, you get out of the car, move the front one a little, the back one a little and you got yourself a parking spot. If still not enough, bump a little in front and in the back.
Parking in old cities that have roads that when they were constructed never accounted for the evolution of times is totally normal. Lisbon is the same with their very small roads without parking spots and small high sidewalls. Can't park because you don't have space, people can't walk because of the small sidewalls path they have available and going into the street is dangerous because of the incoming cars. Only solution is closing the road, and people will get mad. With lack of parking and so on, what happens is that everyone will park the cars whatever space they find, since as
james_s one of the objectives of most of the Portuguese is having a private car and to own a house. Not rent, although times been changing and my generation and the next one see a lot more adoption in renting, specially in high desirable cities were price is prohibitive. But still they will amass money to be able to build a good house at their hometown or somewhere outside of the city, normally in the country side.
I understand cities wanting to reduce pollution and the hassle of cars moving in the city by providing public transportation. But people still want to have their own car and park it whatever they want and leave when they want, without having to be tie up to schedules of the transportation or feeling like a sardine inside a can during rush hours. I see that from living in Shenzhen, and how I miss my car and the freedom of movement it provides me. Transportation here is good, heck 100x better than in Lisbon, I can really move anywhere without needing a car, all transportation is electric (bus, metro and taxis, all are EVs. Even the trash trucks. Dump construction trucks too are starting to turn into EVs) but still a car is a car. My own space, not having to worry about the guy on the side taking too much space on the bench, or the sweaty one in front of me with a intense sweat scent or even the other one who talks to loud or is watching a video on bilibili with the speakers on when the rules strictly ask him not to do it. Specially when you have a baby kid, that takes the house with him every time we go out, having to carry everything on a big back pack plus the car and still is not enough.
And that's a mentality a lot of people share. Even the prospect of a future with self driving cars is something I don't desire. I love to drive, and even here when someone of the family don't want to I'm always the first one to say I will. My wife hates it, if there is a chance to drive or not drive, 99% of the time she chooses not driving.
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