State Drops Parallel Parking Requirement From Driving Test

GLEN BURNIE, Md. (WJZ) --Ask people waiting in line to take the driving test, and you'll find that the most feared part of it is when they have to demonstrate parallel parking.

Now, as Mike Schuh reports, overnight, that fear has vanished.

In the city, parallel parking is still a needed skill, but everywhere else it's a pull in, back out world.

Now, there's big news at the MVA.

"The MVA removed the maneuver from our driver's skills test," a spokesperson for the MVA said.

Wait! Whats that? No more parallel parking test?

Schuh: "One of the things about coming to the MVA is that it can be frustrating and frightening to someone taking a test. You're taking that away from them now?"

"Ask them that when they come and take the test, 'Are they still frightened?'"

Schuh: "How nervous are you?

"On a scale of one to 10 I am somewhere around a 25," said Arooj Sarfraz.

The MVA says the 2-point turnaround tests for the same skill, so, as of this past Monday, it's gone.

What the state's doing reminds me of a story my sister told me, she lived out of state and when she had to take her parallel parking test she told the instructor, "Look, I live in the suburbs, I don't parallel park, if I have to parallel park, I'll keep driving until I find a spot where I don't have to parallel park in. The instructor looked at her and said, "Sounds reasonable," and passed her.

Arooj Sarfraz wishes that would have been her.

This is her third attempt to pass and I'm the first to tell her she doesn't have to parallel park.

"The second time I failed on parallel parking, so yayyy," Sarfraz says.

Sabrina Florez took the test Thursday and confirmed parallel pakring wasn't on the test.

She says, "In general I think you should know how to parallel park, because it's needed,  but in my case, I'm kind of happy about it."

Maryland now joins states like Virginia and Oregon which also did away with the parallel parking requirement.