People Who Can't Park

[koodledrum]

They're bad, but the ones who're starting to really piss me off are the fuckwits who see I'm driving happily along in a driving school car and instantly decide "I'm going to drive right up that guy's exhaust" - yeah I get that it's only my second lesson, yeah I get that you want to go at 40mph in a 30 zone, but there's no need to be a cunt about it!

When it comes to parking the ones that really annoy me are the ones who drive smaller cars but for some reason still require 2 spaces, how it's even possible to spread a Kia Picanto across two spaces I don't know but some people manage it. Oh and that moment when you're in a car park and you're looking for a space and you have the "cool, space....fucking smart car!"

[belfpala]

Oh, I thought of one that annoys me finally...

At my house, there's room for 5 regular size cars to park between my driveway and the end of the block. Almost always when I try to park there, someone has parked too far up from the driveway so a car can't park behind him legally; and someone has parked far enough back from the end of the block so a car can't park in front of him legally. End result, room for 5 cars, but only 3 can fit. Grrrr.

[Paladin885]

That's disgusting.
Why would you ever key someone's car.

same reason why anyone does anything when they think they won't get caught.


....because they can.

[Arlor]

There's no legal reason to blur out the license plates. Accusing somebody of parking badly is not libel, and you should have no expectation of privacy when you're out in public.

On the other hand, sometimes people appear to park badly because the cars that were there when they arrived were parked badly. Can be hard to tell who's fault it was.

[Gheld]

As a resident of Canada, (real Canada, not the snow melts and it goes up to 20 degrees at least 5 times every January Greater Toronto Area) I can relate to bad parking because 50% of the time the lines in a parking lot are either A. Covered in snow, or B. not yet repainted after being scraped off by front end loaders in the winter.

But what gets me is after the lines are freshly repainted people still fail at parking. The problem is that people don't plan their approach into the parking space, so as soon as they start turning their wheel they have absolutely no visual reference as to where the lines will be. If they put a reflective pole up at the front corners of all the parking spaces you probably would see a lot less line violations.

But at the same time, some people favor one side of the parking space, which makes parking around them difficult. The rest of people who park in that row are forced to adjust their parking to fit. The last guy who parked is now in 2 parking spaces and he's also the last guy out of the mall. So everybody looks at him as though he's an asshole even though he had absolutely no choice in the matter. and the real offenders are long gone.

So unless it's blatantly obvious, you really don't know the whole story of why a car is parked "poorly". So people who vandalize cars or harass drivers who are poorly parked are the real jerks because they completely miss the big picture of the situation.

Blaming somebody for being poorly parked is pretty much similar to blaming the last person to cross a bridge for its collapse. Unless you see them running away with the plasma torch they used to cut one of the columns you really have no basis by which to assign fault to them.

[Gheld]

It's annoying when people can't park in parking lots, I agree.

But personally, when I'm trying to park next to a curb (On a curved road) with my truck, I always end up more than 6 inches away from the curb....

Well technically (At least according to my local laws) you are allowed up to 18" from the curb before it becomes a parking violation. It gets worse in the winter though when the snow banks occupy about 6" of road on either side of the curb and somebody parks 18" from the snow bank.

[Balazaar]

Oh the things I've seen ... (a true story)

A lady living across the street years ago takes the award for lousy parking ability. My friend and I were sitting on my steps and we watched her trying to parallel park along a turn in the road. There was a car on the corner and no matter how hard she tried she couldn't get into the spot behind it. She kept cutting too close and having to stop or she would hit the car on the corner. We watched this for 15 minutes. Finally she just gave up. My friend went and checked the size of the parking space she was trying to park in .... about 50 ft! I kid you not, she could not park in a spot big enough to fit a full semi.

Same women, another day. She came out of her house and got into her car to go somewhere. She ended up in a fairly tight place but nothing any person couldn't have dealt with (those cars HAD to have parked there after her, see above). Since she was unable to go back and forth like any normal person would to get out, she did something else. She pushed the car in front of her forward with her car, and pushed the car behind her back also to make room. Then she pulled out. How this woman ever got a license is something I'll never know.

[Gheld]

Ouch, we don't have the snow down here though so I'm not sure what our "limit" is.

Typically 6 inches is about as far out as you want to go, but I'm terribad at parking like that on a curved road, but if the road is fairly straight, then I do a lot better.

Most people park well within 6" of the curb though. The 18" allotment is to give people some leeway for the fact that if you have to parallel park between two wide vehicles there is no way you'll end up anywhere near the curb. The worst is parallel parking between two wide vehicles that are parked 18" from the curb though.

EDIT: and speaking of parallel parking attempts that are painful to watch, don't you hate it when somebody is trying to parallel park and they keep repeating the exact same maneuver that didn't work the first time?

EDIT2:

I'm not that great at parking, so I just park in the empty area of the parking lot and walk.

I do that because people don't watch themselves when they open their car doors.

[muto]

I'm not that great at parking, so I just park in the empty area of the parking lot and walk.

[Thelxi]

What personally get's under my skin is people like my father who like very expensive and flashy cars, and then proceed to always arrogantly park them slightly askew and sloppily in order to look cool. If I'm driving a vulgarly expensive car I always make sure to park it neatly somewhere discreet because of that.

[TheSerialSniper]

Not gonna lie, if I go to a place and they have a massive parking lot and it is empty, I will park my car like an asshole and take up multiple spots in the back. (I always park towards the back of parking lots). It does not bother me when others do the same, unless there is a shortage on parking spots.

[Melkandor]

that's why keying was created.

As Pulp Fiction says, it's chicken shit to mess with another man's automobile.

[Auxis]

Slightly OT: Apparently trucks can successfully park in 4 parking spots ( like :: not ...., where each dot is a carpark). But people with vans and trailers can only park across 3 (van) and 6 (trailer) carparks. >.>

[Balazaar]

There's really no excuse for not learning how to park properly. In high school my driver's ed teacher took us out to the parking lot when it was time to learn parallel parking. He had the cones set up just like the driving test course would. Then he said "This is how much room you have to park when you go for your test." He then picked up a cone and shortened the spot 20-25%. "This is how much room you get from me. If you can park here, you won't have any problem when you take your driving test." He taught the whole course that way, making everything harder than what the actual test was like.

Thanks to him I aced my driving test.

[belfpala]

It gets worse in the winter though when the snow banks occupy about 6" of road on either side of the curb and somebody parks 18" from the snow bank.

I know your pain. Usually my street has two traffic lanes and two parking lanes. For most of this winter, it was 1.5 traffic lanes because the plows sucked at plowing to the curb.

[Eon Drache]

that's why keying was created.

What about those that park next to someone who can't park, and the other person leaves? Would you key their car cause it would appear they can't park, either. Maybe next time you can think a bit?

[IxilaFA]

thats almost impressive....in a bad way but none the less. personaly i tihnk part of the issue is driving instructers that dont really care much on the parking portion of tests or letting mistakes like that slide

I think the problem is more the disconnect between driving requirements in different states. For example, I grew up and got my license in Arizona, which is very, very lax on driving regulations. In order to get your license, you just need a permit, and have driven for at least 40 hours daytime and 20 hours nighttime with a licensed adult (no driving school or classes or certificates required). It usually doesn't matter because in AZ, the roads and cities are designed with heavy vehicle traffic in mind, ie, wide lanes, plenty of traditional parking, etc. But now that I live in California, I am exposed to more parallel parking, cramped roads, commuter traffic, stuff that I should've learned in a driving school but didn't because I didn't ever attend a driving school.

Not to say I'm a bad driver, because I definitely am not, but just using that as a possible reason for why people are so terrible at parking.

My least favorite kind of parkers are people who don't understand the vehicle they are driving. They will drive a big, family-sized SUV with oversized tires and extended cab and try to park in a compact spot, or park RIGHT on the line, which with a car is no big deal, but with your SUV that hangs over the edge, it makes it impossible for me to squeeze in. Also those people with trucks whose wheels stick out BEYOND the edge of their car...what's the purpose of that?

[Gothicshark]

So it's one of my pet peeves I'm not gonna lie. It's the simplest thing in the world, put this highly maneuverable vehicle in between 2 solid lines.

A skill which you in fact had to test for before you were granted your license.

And still it seems the vast majority of the people who's cars you see in parking lots can not get this simple thing down.

SO.

For my own sanity I'll be starting a blog called Morons Who Can't Park a Car. Where I take a snapshot of peoples terrible parking jobs. What I'd like to know, is what is it not ok to post? I think it's a foregone conclusion that I should blot out license plates. Is there anything else I need to be cautious of, other than having one of the people who's shamed see the blog, I'm ok with that.

As someone who ones a 1996 Lincoln Town Car which is 18 feet long, it can some times be a pain parking in most modern parking lots when the sides of my car are exactly the same width as the white lines, to make matter worse are people in the fudging SUVs which decide to park evenly spaced so no one can park in the empty spaces. Also I hate all Hybrid cars, the owners are (bleep) (bleep)ing (bleep) (bleep) (bleep) sheep (bleep) (bleep)ed.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

So it's one of my pet peeves I'm not gonna lie. It's the simplest thing in the world, put this highly maneuverable vehicle in between 2 solid lines.

A skill which you in fact had to test for before you were granted your license.

And still it seems the vast majority of the people who's cars you see in parking lots can not get this simple thing down.

SO.

For my own sanity I'll be starting a blog called Morons Who Can't Park a Car. Where I take a snapshot of peoples terrible parking jobs. What I'd like to know, is what is it not ok to post? I think it's a foregone conclusion that I should blot out license plates. Is there anything else I need to be cautious of, other than having one of the people who's shamed see the blog, I'm ok with that.

I've had a drivers license for 5 months now and don't have my own car, which means I drive my brothers car, uncles car, my parents car, my grandparents car and my friends car. Now since they're all not the same size and have different turning radius it can be difficult to determine when to start turning, how much of an angle you need and so on. Just because you know how to park a 3meter long car doesn't mean you know how to park a 300meter ship, same thing in theory but it's much more complicated to do. Same thing to me (inexperienced driver), then you have old people or people with other limitations which makes it harder for them to turn their head or simply people who aren't sure about themselves (confidence).

I'm not saying it's "hard", I'm saying it's harder to do something new. Just because 2 cars have 4 wheels and 6 cylinder engines doesn't mean they behave in the same way. For instance my parent's car is 0.5 meters wider than my brothers car and you have to work a lot more to see past the framework of the bigger car.


It's the same with people slowing down in tunnels (annoys me to hell but I understand it)
Driving in lit up surroundings then directly into darker surroundings makes people see less clearly, unless you drive with sunglasses your eyes need 10-15 minutes to refocus themselves to the darker environment of a tunnel. Going from dark to light is far easier (couple seconds), so when people slow down it's because they don't see as well (naturally because how the eye works) and they don't want to crash into other traffic.

[RaoBurning]

My pet peeve is when people with "nice" cars take up two spots at an angle to make sure nobody gets too close to their car.

It's like this: If you're sporting a car worth that sort of douchebaggery, you're probably not hanging out at malls anyway. Your little Infinity isn't as cool as you think. Neither is your Lexus.

Come back with a Maserati and we'll talk breathing room.