How long will you be waiting for a parking spot at the mall?

Nine minutes. 

That’s the average time it will take you to find a parking spot at a crowded mall right now – IF you do it right. Mathematician Joe Pagano has it all figured out. The trick is to hover. You’ll need to position yourself in a place where you can see at least 20 parking spots in front of you. Joe says the average person’s mall trip is roughly three hours. Divide that by 20 cars and probability factors indicate that one of those cars will leave in nine minutes or less.

The more cars you can watch, the shorter the wait. If you can see 25 spots, your wait should be 7 minutes or less. It’s a good idea to check Google Maps before heading to the mall. That way you can get a good lay of the land, or lot, and locate the optimal spot for hovering.