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Matzo is safe with self-parking system
January 28, 2007
The Advanced Parking Guidance System of the new Lexus LS 460 L didn’t make Time magazine’s list of 2006’s top inventions, which I commented on last week. Perhaps that’s because of shortcomings in the parking system, which the humorist Calvin Trillin points out in a recent column in the New York Times.
Trillin’s fame as a parking expert may be based on his authorship of the novel Tepper Isn't Going Out, which an Amazon review describes as “a humorous tale of the urban quest for an open parking space.”
In any event, Lexus offered Trillin a chance to test the system. The results? Trillin intimates that the system is incapable of “slicing the bread” or “breaking the matzo”--terms that he uses to describe maneuvering into tight spots. It turns out that the "Advanced Parking Guidance System works only if the spot is six and a half feet longer than the car--the sort of spot, in other words, that the average Manhattan parker comes upon about once every 14 or 15 years.”
The column has a video of the parking system in action. Viewing is free, but registration is required.
What Trillin suggests he really wants is a system that will find parking places. And as I have reported, such systems are beginning to appear. Perhaps such a system will top a list of 2007's best inventions, especially if it is Lexus-compatible and can consistently find spots an extra six-and-a-half feet long.
Posted by Rick Nelson on January 28, 2007 | Comments (1)
