A new study came out about how many hours a year we waste trying to find a parking spot. The timing for this study is perfect considering my parking fail on Friday night in downtown St. Cloud.

There's no doubt that the downtown area of St. Cloud has some very confusing parking for anybody who doesn't head there often. Just try to park during the day on a weekday, or at night on a Friday or Saturday. It's nearly an impossible feat. There's plenty of street parking spaces, ALL with meters, but rarely are those open anywhere near where you're planning to go. There are a lot of parking lots with signs about reserved parking all over the place, and not available for just anybody to park there. Finally there are the parking ramps giving you a last chance to hopefully find a parking spot, at the top level in the far back of the ramp.

This past Friday was easily my worst failure with parking in downtown St. Cloud. My wife and I simply wanted to grab a bite to eat somewhere along W. St. Germain and literally drove around the block to come around in either direction 4 times trying to find somewhere that was at least within a couple blocks of where we wanted to go. It's cold out and we didn't want to walk a half mile just to grab some drinks and appetizers. We ended up stopping somewhere well out of downtown as we wasted enough time on parking, and now were frustrated.

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Daily Mail recently released results of a study that found we spend an average of nearly 27 hours a year finding a desirable parking space. Yes, I said a YEAR! If you break that down into time each day spend, it's 4 to 5 minutes daily.

The study also revealed that 20% of us have got into a accident in a parking lot, either backing into another vehicle, or vice versa.

I'm easily part of the 5% they found to have given up finding a parking spot and turned around and went home.

They also found that the worst person to have as a passenger when you're driving all over to find a good parking spot -- your spouse. This is exactly why I tend to eyeball a spot and then drop her off at the front door, and I go park and meet her inside. I'm old school that way and feel it's the gentleman thing to do. If you're wondering whether I open/close her door for her? Of course I still do, and always will.

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