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Home / Lifestyle

Counting cars: Car park brainteaser stumps the internet

By Rebekah Scanlan
news.com.au·
19 Feb, 2019 11:10 PM3 mins to read

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A user posted the image to Reddit where they shared the optical illusion, asking users: "How many spaces do YOU see?". Photo / Instagram

A user posted the image to Reddit where they shared the optical illusion, asking users: "How many spaces do YOU see?". Photo / Instagram

A brain teaser that should be relatively simple is officially driving the internet insane.

An aerial image of a geometrical car park in the UK was shared by a British photographer on Instagram captioned: "Counting cars."

The innocent post from Abstract Aerial Art has since sparked a frenzy as followers desperately try to figure out how many vacant spots there are among the parked cars.

A user posted the image to Reddit where they shared the optical illusion, asking users: "How many spaces do YOU see?"

"Only genuises get it right, 99% of people get it wrong," the user added.

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Users have been pulling their hair out ever since, desperately trying to figure out the correct number of empty spaces in the aesthetically pleasing photo.

View this post on Instagram

Counting Cars - The point is not to work out what it is, but to show how weird and wonderful the world can look from above.

A post shared by Abstract Aerial Art (@abstractaerialart) on Feb 7, 2019 at 7:53am PST

"I counted eight," one person wrote.

While another declared there was "definitely six".

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"No, there's seven," someone else posted. "Definitely, definitely seven."

Other guesses include five, nine, 11 and even 47.

Naturally, some users have been left feeling "infuriated" by the mind-boggling test.

"I'm giving up, I keep going cross eyed," one frustrated user wrote.

Another said: "This is infuriating."

Some users however were more interested in the parking method, which has been done in a herringbone pattern.

"This is so satisfying," one person wrote.

Another added: "It's mesmerising."

However many questioned the neat parking rows, wondering how you'd ever get out of it.

"What happens if you turn down a row and find it has no spots? Is there a way to circle back to the start since the lanes aren't reversible?" one person quizzed.

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"This only works because the lack of pick up trucks," someone else added.

Another said: "This looks like it'd be annoying to find a spot in because you'd have to loop back around every time you drove through, probably worth the trade off though."

While Reddit users suspected it was a car park, the image is actually an aerial shot of a BMW distribution centre in Thorne, UK.

And if you're still struggling to figure out how many empty spaces were left in the unique design — news.com.au has painstakingly confirmed it is nine.

At least, they think it is. The bottom right hand corner space is debatable.

Revealed: All nine empty spaces. Photo / Instagram
Revealed: All nine empty spaces. Photo / Instagram
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