In non parallel parking situations, the technique I was taught is get near the curb, then turn the wheel half a turn into the curb so I contact it with the front of the tire, then straighten the wheel. Then I know I'm close.
Your wife is a woman after my own heart. We should form the Curb Rash Club. I always thought wheels were there to protect the innerds from the curbs. Also, the wheels protect your tires from slashing by the very sharp Barre Gray granite curbs.
I hate it when the rim sticks out more than the tire for this reason. Rub the tire on the curb no big deal.
Haven't encountered that adventure. Most of the boat ramps around here are so short that you can see the water from the main road.
I have never put rim rash on any of my last four cars except the Clarity. Yesterday, turned near a red marked curb and scrapped it (actually I bumped the curb). While I hooked up to fast charger, I walked over to the passenger side rear tire and noticed a 2 inch scratch on the edge of the rim. Crazy and sucks!
Thank you all so much for your commiserations. I have curbed this darned car more than I’ve curbed every other thing I’ve ever driven, and I used to drive busses! At first I felt like an idiot. Since then every member of my family has curbed the thing at least once. It’s just some weird characteristics of the shape/size of the car. I’ve given up being worried about it and will just get them fixed if I ever trade it in. There’s a guy up in Seattle that has a mobile wheel repair service. No sense in getting them fixed now, I’ll just mess it up again.
I went for years with never rashing any of my cars, and in one year of owning the Clarity, I have scratched 3 out of 4 wheels. One just as soon as I bought it last April, and the other two in two separate incidents last week. (When it rains, it pours sometimes I guess.) The problem with fixing it is that as soon as I fix it/get it fixed, I'll know that I'll ruin it again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This week's Motorweek tested the Range Rover Evoque. The Evoque has an interesting display that shows where the front wheels are going. Here's a photo of ghost wheels superimposed on video from a front camera as the Evoque traverses a railroad trestle (the lower part of this montage shows the Evoque on the trestle as photographed by a drone, not from the Evoque). How did Honda forget to include a front-camera/back-camera/ghost-wheel anti-curb-contact parking aid for our Claritys?!? Motorweek didn't say if the Evoque includes a satellite link to the railroad schedule for that trestle, but that would be another good idea.