Bah. You should've seen what I saw yesterday; A red Chrysler 300, parked in a way that partially blocks the exit to a strip mall! The way that people park make me want to puke. I guess the obsessive compulsive in me wants to shoot anyone who parks slightly off center of the parking space...
I like to park my big nasty old work van nice and close to people like that. I have actually asked people to move so I could and surprisingly they did. If you can't park it or drive it you shouldn't own it.
I just noticed something; the Land Rover in front of it did the same thing! It's GOT to be an SUV driver thing; they're usually the only ones I see doing it around here...
I park like that but very far from other cars (like Wal-mart, mall, theaters, restaurants, etc...). Too many times I have seen shopping carts come to life and run into cars . Too many times I have seen little tikes open doors all the way and hit the car next to them .
Parking like that is just asking to get keyed, parked in, etc. It actually defeats the purpose by drawing more attention to the vehicle, and obviates that the driver is a selfish parking-spot hog. (in a crowded area of a lot like that, Chris ). If you're parked like that in some far away corner of the lot, less likely it'll be noticed. Personally, I would just park normally in some far away spot if I was trying to avoid door dings, etc. A few weeks ago I was in the grocery store parking lot later in the evening - this pickup pulled into a parking spot (mind you, there were lots of open parking spots near the door) where a cart was sitting at the dividing line. He pulled up and bumped the cart (which he didn't have to do, there was even plenty of room to stop before that), and off it rolled, 30 feet down a slight hill and into the side of a pickup truck. I had just started to get into my car but was on the far side of the scene and too far away to get to it quickly enough. The driver didn't even try to get out, he just watched it roll. He had is windows down, and after it hit I said "Oops!" and he replied with "I didn't think it would do all that..." and I responded by saying "Well, I guess with gravity and what all, that can happen." while wondering what he thought WOULD happen when you bump a shopping cart that's sitting at the top part of a slight incline. Duh!
+1 on the 2nd paragraph. I have been doing this for about 12 years. I just don't like people parking next to me unless its a BMW group parking at a restaurant after a rally drive .
That's partially the reason why before parking my car, I get out of it and push all nearby carts into the cart parking space. It makes me want to curse people out when they just leave carts out, especially when the carts block a perfectly good parking space, which is sometimes a luxury to have (*cough*the mall*cough*). What we should do to counter this is first obtain permission from the store owner, and then police the parking lot, scanning for people like these, and for our own satisfaction, run them over! Getting tired, can't ya tell?
