Not withstanding the fact that I NEVER put my Crossfire in a parallel park situation for precisely this reason.............I expect you won't likely do it again either. Yeah, sometimes if we have to wait outside someplace it would be nice to be in a parallel situation just to make it easy for drop off and pick up but I'll drive my car to a parking lot before I allow some idiot the opportunity to bump and scrap it while parking. It's bad enough to have to worry about door dings but the bumpers cost a lot more to fix. Most cars I see in DC can be easily identified as parallel parkers just by looking at their bumpers. To most, they are just cars and it doesn't matter. And if it doesn't mater to them.........then your car is even less of a care. Sad but true.
BTW - removing the parallel parking requirement from the drivers test is meaningless. Most of the people parallel parking passed the test long ago. The passed but have no skill in using it regularly. Even worse, they have no care about the implications on bumping others cars getting into a space either..........Unless you are in the car..........and maybe not even then.
As i side gig on the weekends i do security at a bar in fells point downtown. Sometimes parallel parking is the only option to be within a reasonable distance from the bar. Im usually there from 7pm-3am so the last thing i wanna do is have to walk a long distance at 3am with cash money in my pocket. In downtown Baltimore, your life is worth however much money is in your pocket.