Where did we park?

Two thirds of UK drivers – or around 21.4 million motorists – have forgotten where they parked their car, according to a new study by Nissan.

According to the survey of 2,000 motorists, one in three (33.75%) said they do so at least once a month and a further five per cent admitted to losing their mode of transport on a weekly basis.

As the UK heads towards ‘super Saturday’ – the busiest shopping day before Christmas – thousands of motorists could be stranded in the cold for up to half an hour hunting down their lost vehicle, in car parks crammed with last-minute gift-buyers.

The overall average time to locate a lost car is 10 minutes, although five per cent of respondents admitted to searching for more than half an hour.

For those who frequently misplace their vehicle (once a month or more), the collective time spent each year hunting down parked cars is over 35 million hours – around one hour per year for every UK driver.

Whilst women are more likely to forget where they parked (72% vs. 58% of male respondents), they take less time to find their vehicles – 8.8 minutes on average vs. 11.9 minutes for men.

Of the places drivers are most likely to misplace their vehicles, multi-storey car parks came out number one, closely followed by shopping centres, supermarkets and airports.

Despite in-car and smartphone technology enabling motorists to log precisely where they park and navigate back to their vehicle, only nine per cent of respondents said they had used a smartphone to track the location of their parked car.

However, the 25-34 age range proved the most technically capable in this area, with 16% saying they have used a smartphone to find their car – almost double the overall average.