Cars & Autos | Thursday 23 May, 2019 3:00 am |

Fear of parking is real and many drivers go to great lengths
to avoid parking anywhere remotely challenging. In fact, in a study conducted by Ford Middle
East and Africa with women drivers in Saudi Arabia earlier this year, parking rated as one of
the most stressful things drivers said they had to deal with.
What’s worse is that, until recently, there was no real answer for you. You simply had to grit
your teeth, learn to let all the glaring and honking roll off your back and just get on with it.
Thankfully, those stressful scenarios will very quickly be a thing of the past with Ford’s user-
friendly technology.
“Many of our models – including the Edge, Escape, Explorer and Expedition – come with
Enhanced Active Park Assist,” said Jamie Rae, Marketing manager, Ford Middle East. “It
builds on our previous Active Park Assist technology and is designed to help drivers
manoeuvre all sorts of difficult parking scenarios. With this smart technology, we aim to take
the stress out of parallel parking, and reversing into perpendicular parking spots.”
The newly upgraded Enhanced Active Park Assist includes assisted longitudinal movement,
meaning drivers can now request help even when attempting to parallel park. With a mere
tap of a button, drivers engage the system, which helps detect and measure parking spaces.
It will handle all scanning, shifting, steering, accelerating and braking, while the driver
remains in the vehicle to oversee the maneuver and make sure that the technology is
properly engaged. To tackle perpendicular parking spaces, drivers need to simply select the
system’s perpendicular mode.
And, to help get drivers out of tight spots, Park Out Assist will steer the vehicle out of its
parking spot. All the driver has to do is control the accelerator, gear shift and brakes, while
the system takes care of the steering.