Research highlights common mishaps
Research conducted by OSV has revealed that in the last 12 months 29% of motorists have had a minor prang while parking.
Of those, 12% confessed to the fact that they didn’t inform the owner of the other car involved or even leave a note, after a parking incident.
Of all the potential parking prangs, the most common was the clipping of wing mirrors when driving through a tight spot, or trying to squeeze into a space that was really too small, with a third (33%) of drivers admitting to the faux pas, and 10% of those confessing to playing innocent and driving on without declaring responsibility.
Away from wing mirrors, it seems that passengers are the worst culprits when it comes to bumping other cars, with almost half (48%) of those surveyed saying that their passengers had caused damage by banging a car door into another car, while only 25% of drivers said that they’d done the same themselves.
Passengers also take their fair share of the blame when it comes to causing accidents while parking, with one in five motorists (20%) claiming that their prang had been caused by passenger distractions. Other reasons were: 17% said that pedestrians had either blocked their view or necessitated a change of course; just over one in 10 (11%) drivers said that the pressure from other drivers had made them manoeuvre too quickly; mobile phones had caused problems for seven per cent of motorists; and for a small number of survey respondents (three per cent) it had been a loud noise that had caused them to jump and misjudge their manoeuvre.
The most common objects hit include bollards (27%), other cars (21%), garage doors (15%), gates (12%) and walls (10%).
