Having trouble parking? It’s not your fault

David Millward, transport editor of the Daily Telegraph, has been looking into the growing number of people who have difficulty in parking. He says: "Drivers who find that parking only seems to get harder may attribute it to their increasing age, or perhaps harbour suspicions that slots are getting smaller. However, the problem most likely lies in their car just being too big.

“A study found that while parking spaces are no larger than they were 20 years ago, cars are 16 per cent bigger – on average two inches wider than the gap they have to squeeze into. It means that the average car is now two inches wider than the 5ft 11ins (1.80m) minimum recommended by Whitehall.

“So drivers of a standard car like a Ford Focus at 6ft 7ins (2.01m) will struggle to get into the space without pulling in the wing mirrors. Having squeezed into the space, getting out of the car without scuffing the door is proving too much for many motorists. Car doors have accounted for 50 per cent of car park mishaps, bumpers 14 percent and wings a further 13 per cent.”

Robot cars that can take over most of the driving from their human handlers will be ready for the road within three years, according to Elon Musk, the US electric cars and space entrepreneur whose bold predictions have come to embody an ambitious new era in tech industry thinking.