Even if you're just doing a drop-off or pick-up of a person or goods, you still need somewhere safe, and appropriate, and available, to do that.

In fact, parking can sometimes be the difference between whether self-driving or public transport is the more appealing option for a particular journey or commute.

What that means is consideration towards parking is an important aspect to remember, whether it's town planning or a development, a business choosing where to set up shop, or event planning for that matter.

They need to consider how people will get to and from the thing they are planning. If that is likely to involve any proportion of them driving they need to ensure there is somewhere at least nearby where those people can park when they get there.

Parking in public places, at least any place that is the responsibility of the local council or territory, tends to be time limited in busy places. This may seem like an inconvenience to those who think they should be able to park where they want all day, but these time limits do have a purpose.

That purpose is not to collect revenue through fines. Wherever revenue is sought to cover the cost of the land area the parking occupies (or to more strongly encourage people to move on when they've done what they needed to do), it should be collected through parking meters or some other system.

The purpose of the time limits is to manage the fact that there is limited parking in that particular area, and so for businesses or any other entity to succeed they need people to be able to come and go throughout the day to attend their appointments or just purchase goods or services.

Therefore, if you decide to be lazy and park yourself in the way all day, only moving your vehicle if a ranger comes along, then you are actually hurting local businesses because you, and every other lazy person like you, is making it harder for customers to reach the businesses around you.

That said, some large scale developments like shopping centres seem to intentionally skim the wages of ordinary workers by charging them for parking instead of issuing staff parking permits, which always seemed unfair in my view. They know that all these businesses will need staff and whether there's a viable public transport option as an alternative, so I don't think this is happening by accident. And it's not like every enterprise agreement accounts for the additional cost of parking and transport between one site or another, but we're getting sidetracked here.

In other heavily-populated areas (streets mainly), preferential treatment may be given to the residents through permits or some other system. This is to give them a greater chance of actually being able to park their vehicle near their home.

Meanwhile, the need to leave disabled or parents parking spaces available to those with a permit or a pram is pretty obvious, unless you're genuinely thick or just self-absorbed and selfish (or all of those at once).

Wherever it is that you need to park, it is also considered a skill. It's why parking is included in driving tests. You need to be able to efficiently and competently manoeuvre your vehicle into a snug space without bumping into anything or taking all day to do it.

For parallel parking, this means entering the space in reverse. The reason for this is when the trailing wheels are the ones doing the steering the vehicle can take a tighter turn. It's why forklifts steer from the back wheels, and why you more than likely steer your shopping trolley by swinging the back rather than the front, especially when it starts getting a bit of weight into it.

Something else that I think should be strongly encouraged, if not compulsory, is reversing into spaces in parking lots. The reason for this is you can see that everyone around you has seen you stop and is waiting for you to make your next move. However, if you drive in forwards and expect to reverse out, your view can easily be blocked by the vehicles next to you, and you have to pretty much just hope that everyone, including little pedestrians, notice you reversing out.