[Quiet Man Cometh]

The "formula' for parallel parking worked well for me. And yes, it will need to be tweaked for each car. My stepbrother took me out for that particular lesson and he watched the car enough to tell me that my car's back end would overswing, so if I followed the rules precisely, my rear end would actually start to swing out of the spot again. I have to adjust what I was doing to park properly.

Time well spent, though. The person manning the test complimented me on my parallel park job. :)

Another tip that helped me out a lot for reversing: When going backwards, find something in the middle of your rear window or in the back of your car that you can line up with something where you want your car to go, like a fence post or something. Keep the two in line with each other and keep a straight line. My instructor compared it to sighting a rifle, which I've done enough to know.