Accelerating urbanisation, combined with a sharp rise in privately owned automobiles, has placed considerable pressure on city infrastructures, particularly with respect to parking management and vehicular safety. Locating an available parking slot consumes significant driver time, indirectly amplifying fuel usage, traffic density, and urban air pollution. Simultaneously, limited driver visibility around a vehicle—especially in blind-spot regions—continues to be a leading contributor to low-speed accidents during parking manoeuvres. This paper offers a thorough review of prevailing technological frameworks, with particular emphasis on deploying ESP32 microcontrollers alongside arrays of heterogeneous sensors to achieve real-time proximity monitoring and obstacle awareness. The study traces the evolution from conventional camera-only solutions toward affordable, omnidirectional IoT architectures designed to strengthen situational awareness comprehensively. Key findings underscore the value of ultrasonic sensing paired with cloud-connected dashboards and smartphone interfaces in building a safer, fully networked vehicular ecosystem.