Double Parking

[kairparavel]

1 hour ago, r'hllor's dirtbag lobster said:

But... there is no real reason someone taking up two spaces would necessitate anyone else doing so

Snow. Unplowed parking lot. Can't see the lines. Rinse repeat all day. Even when the snow melts or some plowing happens. 

[all swedes are racist]

30 minutes ago, kairparavel said:

Snow. Unplowed parking lot. Can't see the lines. Rinse repeat all day. Even when the snow melts or some plowing happens. 

Right, but that's an honest mistake- and assuming* everyone parks in reasonable, not douchey order, you only lose what, one spot (per row)?

*not to be taken for granted, of course

[kairparavel]

55 minutes ago, r'hllor's dirtbag lobster said:

Right, but that's an honest mistake- and assuming* everyone parks in reasonable, not douchey order, you only lose what, one spot (per row)?

*not to be taken for granted, of course

The lot at work has been fucked by the early risers on several occasions. And it's not just ten people who have guestimated the parking spot, but they also mess with the plows ability to be effective, darting in and out of their labyrinth. It takes days if not longer to recover from that.

But yeah, isolated incidents where plowing is late. It happened at lot at the Safeway near our old place as well.

[Joe Pesci]

12 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

I always liked the Louis CK line in that situation. You just lift up your arms and yell "Social contract, asshole! C'mon!" That usually gets a laugh from passersby and a confused stare from the person you're yelling it at.

I do it in a conversational tone like I am in shock that someone would park like that, completely masking the malice intended by my statement. The look on peoples faces is hilarious, and it really throws people off from their retaliatory comebacks. I've used it probably half a dozen times this year with only one guy really responding back at me. Though me being 6'4" and in decent shape may also have something to do with it...

[Lily Valley]

On 12/30/2016 at 8:47 PM, Iskaral Pust said:

Double-parking is as Altherion describes and it's a much bigger public nuisance than merely taking an extra parking spot in a parking structure.  One shitheel can make traffic worse for everyone because he won't find actual parking or circle the block.

In my experience, over-sized vehicles like huge pick-up trucks and steroid SUVs (highly correlated with huge sense of entitlement) are worse offenders than expensive cars when it comes to taking more than one parking space. "Compact Only" means that, but they seem to view it as their patriotic duty to ignore it. 

Double parking as in parking next to a parked car in traffic is very dangerous.  Here it means the person is blocking the bike lane AND part of a traffic lane.  This means cyclists and cars have to come to a complete stop or jut out into traffic.  If I do the second, the double parked driver or a car behind me may hit me. There have been enough bike fatalities in NOLA that we can now take a screen shot of the plate of cars doing this and send it to 411.  Cabs are the most frequent offenders.  Since I don't drive, this annoys me a whole lot more than the taking 2 spaces thing.

I had a coworker years ago who had "Thanks Asshole!" cards made for a variety of parking no-nos.  My favorite was, "Thanks for leaving a fucking can opener so I could get into my car!"   This was left for those who parked too close.  I got one of these.  Oddly, he had parked next to ME, but I suppose I was pretty close to the left line.

[Quoth]

I enjoyed the tactic, I believe it was from the book "Life's Little Annoyances",  whereby a note is left on the double parker's windshield to the effect:

"So sorry I scratched your beautiful car! Especially when you took the trouble to avoid just that happening to it. I'm such a klutz! I wanted to leave my contact info so you could  send me the bill for repairs. But, I really can't afford it. Again, I'm very sorry".

This sort of note hopefully causes the offender to have some well deserved heart palpitations as he frantically searches for the (non-existent) damage.

[Greywolf2375]

On ‎12‎/‎30‎/‎2016 at 11:32 PM, DireWolfSpirit said:

I have 2 large trucks and I go out of my way to find areas large enough to accomodate me. This is snow country actually and the majority of the area population owns one or two large AWD style vehicles. I dont have too much of a problem with parking space widths (although I would prefer they were a few feet wider) . I find they are usually 3 or 4 feet short in depth for what I'd prefer.

I'm not sure why people would try to park in spaces that are inadequate for their vehicles when they run an increased risk for scratches and dents.

See, someone parking like that I don't mind if someone with an extended bed parks out of the way and takes up two spaces length wise.  It's that jackwagons that decide they need 4 spots and park over the lines like they are trying to center their vehicle on it.

On ‎12‎/‎31‎/‎2016 at 10:42 AM, r'hllor's dirtbag lobster said:

Right, but that's an honest mistake- and assuming* everyone parks in reasonable, not douchey order, you only lose what, one spot (per row)?

*not to be taken for granted, of course

That's part of the problem though - I don't think people necessarily do it because they are douches, but when it snows people want more space around their vehicle so instead of there being 2 feet between cars, there's 5 or 8 and all of a sudden we have the gap toothed grin parking lot.

[Jen'ari]

I tend to just park in a spot away from other cars if I can as I don't want my car damaged, there's not really an excuse for not parking in a bay correctly if one is available.

[Martell Spy]

George on double parking

http://imgur.com/u86akX1

[Inigima]

1 hour ago, Lord Sidious said:

I tend to just park in a spot away from other cars if I can as I don't want my car damaged, there's not really an excuse for not parking in a bay correctly if one is available.

That's great and all but this is done in city and similar settings where parking "away from other people" doesn't exist. 

[Jen'ari]

56 minutes ago, Inigima said:

That's great and all but this is done in city and similar settings where parking "away from other people" doesn't exist. 

It does in private car parks, the difference being you have to pay to park in them, London is hardly a tiny hamlet after all.

[Datepalm]

Ugh, I just tried to figure out what London's long-term parking policy plans are, and it seems to have a kind of semi-devolved authority on parking policy to the individual boroughs who all seem to be doing their own research and planning. Hippies.

[Buckwheat]

12 hours ago, Lord Sidious said:

It does in private car parks, the difference being you have to pay to park in them, London is hardly a tiny hamlet after all.

Wait ... you do not have to pay for parking in public places, like on the streets and public car parks, in London?

[Jen'ari]

7 hours ago, Buckwheat said:

Wait ... you do not have to pay for parking in public places, like on the streets and public car parks, in London?

 

Yes you do, but a lot of car parks are owned by private companies and more expensive so they're not as full.

[DireWolfSpirit]

See, someone parking like that I don't mind if someone with an extended bed parks out of the way and takes up two spaces length wise.  It's that jackwagons that decide they need 4 spots and park over the lines like they are trying to center their vehicle on it.

No i'm not even doing it with an extended bed, I have the standard bed. I just find the spaces inadequate and I'd rather walk an extra 50 yards than have my vehicle scratched, dented and abused because the spaces arent large enough to avoid swinging doors, nor long enough, even for a standard bed in many of the spaces some retailers are offering. They are trying to cram the rows to tightly in some instances, its just piss poor planning and design. The aftermath is you see threads like these where all the drivers are turned on each other and playing a blame game.

So yes asshole drivers deserve there villification, but I'd wish planners and developers would pay more attention to user friendly designs and spacing.

[Free Northman Reborn]

If it is an open parking lot, with no personally designated parking bays, what's the big deal? It merely means the guy is occupying two parking spots instead of one. Should have no knock on effect down the line.

Going around like a SJW writing chalk messages about social contracts and whatnot probably just means you have too much time on your hands and should get a job.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

If it is an open parking lot, with no personally designated parking bays, what's the big deal? It merely means the guy is occupying two parking spots instead of one. Should have no knock on effect down the line.

Going around like a SJW writing chalk messages about social contracts and whatnot probably just means you have too much time on your hands and should get a job.

And assholes who do that in a small lot with few spaces available? Which is what prompted this thread.

[Datepalm]

2 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

So yes asshole drivers deserve there villification, but I'd wish planners and developers would pay more attention to user friendly designs and spacing.

Parking is a planning dilemma. Like, geometrically. If you had as much space as you would want to put cars next to all the things you would want to put cars next to, there would be no room for the things themselves. Roads and parking takes up 30-60% of ALL SPACE in cities. (You can guess which cities are closer to 30 and which are closer to 60.) Making life nicer for cars makes for more cars, because everything else has to move apart to accomodate the cars, meaning it is necessary to have more cars to get between the far apart things which then need to park somewhere. It's a doom spiral.

I'm not saying that parking lot design in not a neglected art form, and if you're going to build them, you might as well do it well, but it is literally impossible to always have as many parking spots as everyone wants, where and when you want them. So parking is always going to be a problem, with double parking and wandering about looking for spaces and disporportionate anger at the poor bastard who parked crookedly and feeling like they make spots too small. It's ok though, at a guess, cars will banned from most urban cores within most of our lifetimes.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Well when theres no more surface space and few other good options, it might be time to go vertical, if you can afford it.

We desperately need to add another level to our main parking lot at work. The only way to go is up. We have every available space in use 2 large lots as well as a nearby public lot. We have contractors coming in w/ shuttles and we still have long lines of cars parked along every nearby inch of curbside. Luckily I work the later shifts and dont have to deal with that rat race of a nightmare that the dayshift employees face.

I fealt the Las Vegas strip did vertical multi level parking pretty well when I lived out there. For as busy as the strip would get, there was never any problem finding parking for my Jeep. Ive read a while back that they are going to start charging for parking spaces in more of the casinos though. I dont like the sound of that, there have always been plenty of places for free parking if you knew where to look.

So anyways I will be thrilled (wish list here) if we could add another level of parking, above our surface lot, in the next year or two. In the meantime, I'm grateful to be on the off shift where theres a bit of relief from the congestion.

[Datepalm]

A year or two after that, it will be too full again, and you'll need to build another floor. And then another floor. The company will cut those shuttles for the contractors, the curbside parking will get a little better so the rest of the city will take up using that space again with more people driving into downtown thus quickly filling it up again, that multistory parking structure might even drive away a little business by making the block a little less walkable, a little less human-scale. Not a lot, for sure, a few percent, but maybe that will put that one shop under and whatever you used to be able to get there would now require more driving...this aggregates througout a city and all parking ends up being inadequate parking.