"ACCORDING to research by Accident Exchange, UK drivers cause nearly three quarters of a billion pounds of damage annually simply parking their cars."

I read this fact out to my pals at our weekly catch up.

“It’s estimated there are 500,000 car parking collisions annually, which is 1,373 every day.”

“Why are there so many more accidents nowadays?” Christine was keen to know.

“Apparently, drivers are having to squeeze larger cars into smaller spaces, and visibility in older vehicles was better because they had far more glass, lower sills and narrower pillars.”

For once I sounded like I knew what I was talking about, and the subject matter lead to some hilarious confessions.

“I accidentally parked on top of a pile of scaffolding which was lying by the roadside.” Mae admitted.

And we wondered how that was possible before one us dared to ask.

“Was it dark?”

“No.” Replied the bold Mae.

“I just didn’t see it.”

“Two guys helped push me back out on to the road, so I decided to park in the giant Asda car park.”

“Oh well.” I laughed.

“You can’t go wrong in a car park.”

But I was wrong.

Apparently Mae lost her small black and white Toyota in the vast car park and walked around for ages beeping her key fob hoping her lights would flash.

Eventually she spotted her own wee car and hurriedly put her shopping on the back seat before climbing into the driver’s seat.

But just as she was about to put the key in the ignition, she spotted a wedding magazine on the seat next to hers, and on further inspection soon realised that she was in fact sitting in a Peugeot and not a Toyota and that she was indeed in someone else’s car.

“I’ve never gotten out of a car so quickly in my life.” Mae admitted.

“I mean, what idiot leaves their car unlocked?” She ranted, completely missing the fact that it was her fault she got into the wrong car!

“Remember the night we got lost Janice?” Christine turned to me.

Nodding I agreed. “I’ll never forget it.”

Driving home to Airdrie, we were suddenly diverted off the M8 and found ourselves in Robroyston.

“Bloody roadworks.” I sighed.

“I’ve no clue where we are.”

“Me neither.” Admitted my pal.

But after driving for about half a mile we noticed three cars following a red Ford Fiesta.

“Ignore the diversions and follow him.” My bright spark pal suggested.

“He seems to know his way back to the M8.”

And just like sheep we blindly followed the cars in front who were following the red Fiesta.

“We seem to be going in the right direction.” I surmised spotting the landmark giant blue gas tanks.

Christine nodded as the convoy drove through Provanmill. Right. Left. Right. Left.

Then Ruchazie. Right. Left. Right. Left.

“He seems to know all the shortcuts.” My pal was impressed.

By now there was quite a convoy of lost drivers following the Fiesta.

Suddenly, whilst driving through Easterhouse the Fiesta pulled over and parked in a housing scheme, at which point the driver got out, locked his car and went into one of the flats.

“Turned out we had just followed a guy who was heading home.” We admitted to our pals.

“And we were nowhere near the M8!”

Shaking their heads at us, the conversation got back to parking as I relayed my niece Maggie’s weekend antics.

Maggie and Martin were all chuffed at the fact that they had only driven around George Square once before Martin found a parking space.

Nimbly he expertly reverse parked into a rather tight spot, and feeling rather pleased with himself he turned to his wife.

“Right, give me some change and I’ll get a ticket from the machine.”

Two minutes later Martin returned with the ticket.

“Martin, that only takes us up to 1.33pm.” Maggie queried.

“An hour is not enough.”

“Well, I’ve just put £3 in the machine.” He stated.

“Well, you’ll need to go and put more money in then.” Was the curt reply.

Two minutes later and on inspecting the second ticket Maggie roared.

“Martin what have you done?”

“I put in another £3 for another hour.” Martin had no idea why his wife was rather irate.

“Martin ya numpty, the time starts from when you put the money in.”

She yelled showing him the time on the second ticket of 1.35pm.

“You’ve only added another two minutes.”

And somehow Martin just couldn’t get his head around the fact that he had to put in £6 at once to cover the two hours and not two separate lots of £3.

“Brains…..” Maggie muttered as she raked in her purse for another £6.

Parking. Whoever said it was easy?