Regardless of their reason, I think that parallel parking spaces are the most inefficient use of available road space out there. Unless you have absolutely no extra driving lane width available, angle-in parking is more efficient.
I can still parallel park, but don’t because there just aren’t that many of them around where I live any more. The only ones I see are at WalMart - where the handicappers have 10 feet on each end to pull in the van they’re supposed to be using (but don’t).
You can get more cars in a given space, but it’s dangerous. You have to back out into traffic while your view is obstructed.
You are correct. My town has angle parking on most of the downtown streets. The streets are effectively 4 lanes wide, so there is still ample room in the street when the curbs are taken up with cars angle parked. You do get more cars parked per block with angle parking.
However, angle parking creates another problem When you angle park on the left side of the street, you can't see through the car to your left to determine if there's oncoming traffic before you pull out. If you angle park on the right side, it's almost as bad. You have to look through your own car, past the car on the right, to check for oncoming traffic.
Parallel parking is less efficient in use of curb space, but it's a lot easier for the driver to check for oncoming traffic from behind, when parallel parked.