Wednesday, February 07, 2018

 

Parking [how not to]

Yesterday I walked out to my car at the end of the day and couldn't help but notice the little BMW in the spot next to me. The driver had parked it on a diagonal; not crossing the line but just kind of sideways in there (we have wide spaces). It looked like they had wheeled in with alacrity and then just ditched it; it kind of made me laugh to think about.

That wasn't really a bad parking job, relatively speaking, for the garage I use. It apparently is a magnet for bad parkers, and a special Minnesota variety of bad parker-- not the inconsiderate slob who takes up two spaces or uses the handicapped spot before jogging off to work. No, it's more like this:

-- The guy who backed his car in a little too far and got smushed into the wires back there
-- The person who parked in the corner where there is no wall and got her car completely covered in snow and then just left it there for weeks
-- The doofus who parked directly in front of the door to the stairs, so that people coming in and out have to basically climb over his car.

I know... not much to complain about, really. What do you see?

Comments:
A lot of people who are undereducated or uneducable as to how to park, their social responsibilities to the rest of the human race, etc., etc. A failure of either education or genetic endowment!
 
Waco Friend, you have no idea how many well educated oblivious jerks walk this Earth…many of whom fancy themselves good Christians, self-exempted of course from the Golden Rule of “[not]do to others…” blah, blah.
 
I lived in West Philadelphia when I was in law school. Lot's of crazy things happen in West Philly. Shootings, burglaries, frequent police chases . . . my roommate was robbed at gunpoint in front of our apartment, for example. But the parking situation was an absolute circus. It's a neighborhood where many folks don't have cars, but those that do largely have to parallel park on the street. In the summer, it was like an all-out game of bumper cars. People would just back up until they hit they car behind them, the pull forward until they hit the car in front of them, then repeat that process until they were generally out of traffic. Things were even sillier in the winter. The snow plows would push all the snow and ice into big berms between the driving lanes and all the parallel-parked cars. Philly tends to have wet winters, so after a couple of weeks these berms were typically frozen solid, leaving legions of sedan drivers no option but to (a) shovel and smash three feet of accumulated snow and ice out of the way, or (b) attempt maneuvers better left to Jeep Wranglers and Humvees. On one particularly notable occasion, on intrepid driver managed to get high-centered on top of the berm, with its drive wheels completely off the ground and partially blocking the eastbound lane. All of this happened near the top of a fairly steep hill. When a SEPTA bus had to stop to avoid hitting the stranded car, it could not get going again, with its back tires spinning on the icy road. As I recall, three police cars and two tow trucks were involved in the ensuing melee. I was late to class that morning...
 
Scene: The parking lot is a sea of open spaces. I park well away from other cars, leaving at least two or three empty spaces to either side. I come out from the store to find that someone (usually in a huge pickup) has parked right next to me on my driver's side. Why?

From my forthcoming memoir: Parking Lot Archipelago.
 
In the U.K. people park on the sides of already narrow streets. They turn two-way streets in to one ways. Oncoming cars have to take turns from opposite directions going around the cars. It would propbably be ok, except they don't stop to take turns, just speed up or slow down. There is some sort of unspoken code that I haven't figured out yet.
 
In Iceland, people park on both sides of the road in either direction. So you might be facing the front end of another car when you parallel park, and it's ok. I love Iceland.
 
This reminds of the David Brooks piece in the NYT a month or so ago.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/04/opinion/how-would-jesus-drive.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share

In the aggregate, these folks all seem to be in a hurry and employing a cost-benefit analysis in which they believe they aren't inconveniencing others. I'm guessing winter in MN has something to do with this.

 
So many weird parking traditions! CTL, I know exactly what you are talking about... (lived in Philly) and Desiree, they do that in Texas, too.
 
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