I haven’t posted anything in my parking woes rants in some time, but this past weekend we hit a trifecta of humdinger dumbassery, so let’s get with the ranting shall we? I’ve got three prime examples of parking that would make your hand slap your forehead so hard you’d look like you burned it on hot pan in the dead of summer. What’s got me speaking in horrible metaphors and clichés? Follow along why don’t you?
Let’s start with the gym that Shannon and I hit just 10 minutes away from us (driving of course…its about a half hour rolling there in the best of weather). I’ve shown you pics of its rather “unique” parking lot before. It’s a lot better than it used to be, with more disabled parking in better arrangements, but all things can’t stay good for long! First, we give you…this:
This isn’t all that out of the ordinary as I see people making this mistake all the time. I don’t actually think its a mistake and more a combination of ignorance and laziness. He does have a disabled pass, but so many people seem to forget what the hashmarked section is for and to be honest, disabled drivers can be the worst for it. This guy would have already had us gnashing our teeth, except, at the same time, two cars over we found…this:
Yep. That’s the one that actually had us go back in after our workout to find out if they could do anything at the centre. This is just…crazy. Look, we don’t even have to discuss why the hashmarks are there, but let’s do it for this person. That isn’t a spot. Yes, there is room for your car, but that space is there to let people have room to load via the side of their cars. It leaves a lot of space between cars, but it is NOT AN INVITATION TO PARK THERE! You can see that the car on the left is in so tight that the driver can barely open the door. I don’t even know how the driver of that RAV4 got out of their own car. What makes this even worse is that Shannon remembered seeing this car parked the same damn way one day earlier when she’d been to the gym.
We did try to report it, find the person, see if they could do a PA call, get security out, anything that could teach this person a lesson. Unfortunately, they don’t have a PA throughout the new facility (seriously…the place is brand new and they don’t have a global PA for alarms?) and no one there could do anything but call parking enforcement…who would get there after the person had finished their workout. We did check the window and despite their utter lack of parking common sense, they did have a pass. I just don’t get how you can be so selfishly stupid as to do this to other disabled drivers! So you’d think that would top it right? Well, hold my beer.
As we headed home and got back to our street I give you…this:
This picture I had to blow up. Don’t worry, Shannon took that shot as I drove, you can even see my phone on the dash there, so no smartass remarks about unsafe driving. Now this looks a bit scary eh? That car seems to be coming right at me from not too far away. Here’s the trick…it ain’t moving. The owner parked the car there, in the middle of the damn street. Yes, there is a bloody iced over snowbank there, but let’s have some common sense here. Forget the other drivers, at least they were in a parking lot and weren’t a hazard to moving cars. A large truck would have to go up on the sidewalk to get by and there is no way two cars are passing both ways here. On top of that, would you trust other drivers not to clip your car as they tried to get you? As I grumble with memories of my car getting clipped in a hit and run last year. I know people give me a second look in the winter time when I park facing the wrong way, but at least I’m not in traffic and when I do it (benefits of a disabled pass) it’s legal!
2018. Some thing never change, they just get more infuriating.