Actually I live in a very big city where lots are actually cramped, multi-story garages. In many or most of these parking garages, there is a single, one-way lane that circles up and then down the structure. If a driver camps out on the third level, they often have 10-20 cars piled up behind them by the time they decide to park. And inevitably, the sixth level is completely vacant. Their camping out is the ultimate in selfishness: Instead of going to the sixth level where there are plenty of spots, they made 10-20 people wait for them just so they could be 3 stories closer to street level. Or because they are tourists who are panicked about parking and donât realize the sixth level is always empty. I can name at least 4 structures where this happens every time you try to park there.
So yes, random musical chairs is 100 times better system than panicked waiting for the first spot you see that might open up some time in the future, when your waiting makes everyone else wait.
And no, itâs not about the city planners. It is about common courtesy. Keep moving until there is an open spot and we will all get spots eventually.
If thatâs possible then fine. See my response to CarlMud: where I live, itâs often not possible because there is a single lane and the camper ends up causing a totally avoidable traffic jam.
I wonât drive to somewhere where I need to circle or camp out for a fucking parking spot. Iâll come up with different plan. Maybe go earlier. Or later. Or ride my bike. Or walk. Or take the bus. Or go someplace else. Or donât go. Endless options.
I didnât see any behavior in that video that Iâd want to encourage.
The âPhysical aggressionâ you are referring to is what? An 8-year-old kid standing still in front of a large metal vehicle? Heck, it was the driver who first nudged forward further into the contested zone after the kid arrived!
I canât see or hear the place in the video where it was the woman who instigated deliberately âblocking him with a childâ. Looked to me like he did it on his own, trying to be helpful in his own 8-year-old way, not under direct instruction.
I think we just found the issue of our disagreement. Youâre projecting a scenario of a multistory parking garage onto a usually and presumably flat parking lot. In a flat parking lot, itâs often possible to see spots open on other lanes of the lot so you might also be able to see that none others are available and know that waiting for a spot is your best bet. A multilevel garage is a different scenario and you canât see if other levels are full. I would certainly move onto a different level if there werenât open spots on the level Iâm currently on.
Ideally the garage owner would have personnel on site and preferably have electrical signage indicating which floors have vacancies. If not, you should ask them for that. I assume youâre paying for parking so your money should be going towards better parking scenarios.
I wondered too, and at first I thought it wasnât their kid (still donât know for sure)âŚ
According to the description on YouTube, theyâre at a parkâRocky Point Park, Port Moody, BC Rocky Point Park - Wikipedia
It has lots of amenities including bike trails
Makes sense to me that theyâd have the kidâs bike with them. So theyâre circling the parking lot, kid that age gets bored and gets out and grabs his bike. Or maybe the parents drove over to the building and the kid biked over and met them in the lotâŚ
Back in my more aggressive days, I had someone do something similarâŚbecome an asshole just to get the easier spot that I had been waiting on for 5 minutes. The worst part was that as I was driving around, an older lady had come up and knocked on my window TELLING ME she was leaving and asking me if I was having trouble find a spot. Yup. She said FOLLOW ME, so I did. And waited her her. For 5 minutes. And some asshole sees me and sees her backing out and nearly hit her to get the spot.
I told that person that she might as well buy new tires because she was going to need themâŚwaited a few minutes and then stabbed two of her tires (gotta do two because otherwise they are just temporarily inconvenienced)âŚand decided to shop elsewhere.
The fact of the matter is people know what the social norms are. And if you choose to believe the social norms donât apply just because they arenât âillegalâ, then you have signaled your intent to be exempted from other social norms. Like not getting your damn tires slashed (much harder than I expected it to be as well). These days, Iâm just glad Iâm no longer in that asshole phase of my life which means I just get to feel sorry for assholes that do these things because I know its the one and only power they may get to wield.
Itâs certainly nice if you have that freedom to do so. Others might not be so lucky. What if the parking lot in question is your workplace? You canât exactly opt not to go to work because you donât want to circle the parking lot looking for an open spot. And if you have a meeting in 30 minutes, you may not have time to drive back home and take the bus or bike or walk. Not waiting isnât a perfect strategy to every scenario for every person and choosing to wait simply canât mean that people are âdoucheyâ unless itâs possible to be forced to be a douche.
If one object physically blocks another object on purpose, that is an aggressive move. In addition, the parent is a weasel PoS for involving, and hiding behind, their child in that manner. The blocker should have continued to make their âhuman connectionsâ and directly asked the video car for the spot, not the people leaving.
Way to be the bigger asshole.
I generally park wherever there is tons of space because I have two healthy legs and should be using any excuse to walk more.
If youâre going to let someone ruin your day because you expect everyone to observe the same rules (and in parking lots, most of those rules are unwritten), then youâre going to be falling victim to the same problem that the self-driving Google cars are having: some people just drive like assholes and thereâs nothing you can do about it.
If someone âstealsâ your spot, take a breath, find another spot, and get on with your life. Choosing any other approach is not going to change the other person, itâs not going to save you time, or hassle, or frustration, or make your day better in any way.
If youâre committed to not walking far, be prepared to deal with other people who are just as committed and a whole lot less scrupulous. Otherwise, save time, hassle, and gas, and put on your walking shoes.
Or, to phrase the narrative another wayâŚ
The kid has been scouting the carpark, and first turns up to observe (not blocking)
Only after the driver has started assaulting his mum* does he move himself and his bike in front of her as a form of voluntary human shield against this aggressor.
I still donât see the part in the vid that you are referring to - where we see the parent is directly instructing the kid to do this.
- If you can use words that say that standing still is âPhysical aggressionâ, then âverbal assaultâ can clearly be described as âassaultâ in that same world. I donât personally agree with either twists of that language.
Then you have one healthier leg than I do! I was in a wheel chair and crutches at this point in my lifeâŚmy doctor was trying to get me to get a placard for my car so I could get the handicapped spot, but I didnât think it would be fair to take these spots from someone else that may have had worse problems. I was in pain, I was grouchy and I had been waiting for the spot â from someone that had told me to follow her. I have no idea why she did so, but that day it felt like someone was looking out for me. Until the asshole struck.
It ruined every good thing about the day. And no, I donât think I was the bigger assholeâŚThey choose to ignore social convention and laughed about it. I just helped them with their belief.
That said, Iâve VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY glad you were able to read my very last line where I said that this was a phase in my life and Iâm very glad Iâm no longer in this one. I had a lot of reasons to be angry back thenâŚthe fact that my body was crumbling out from under me was one of them. Luckily, now I get to take an injection every week and I donât have to worry about my bones decaying and breaking and all that shit that normal people donât have to think about, and Iâm much happier.
Either way, treat someone like shit, expect to get treated like shit. Its the way of the worldâŚluckily for me, it is a social convention I donât want any part in playing any more. But when someone else does it, I just sit back and smile.
OK, letâs remove all assumption and go with what we know.
The video guy was there first, and typically this means he gets the spot. End of story.
Unless youâre assigned a number and its enforced, the only way you can stake a claim is proximity or physical possession.
It is indeed nice. I have used my position of privilege (middle-class upbringing, white, living in a few âwesternâ countries) to enable me to make choices regarding education, career, and living location to ensure that I have rarely ever had to drive to work. When I have been in circumstances where I drove to work, those have been when living in small country towns with few issues regarding parking. A daily city-bound car-commute would tear my soul out, particularly if parking was an issue.
I recognize my circumstances maybe arenât typical. The lines of gridlocked traffic that I cycle past every morning and evening on my way and from work in the city are evidence enough that many people may have made, and continue to make different choices than I. I obviously canât speak for their individual situations, nor priorities though.
Oh, and I never said that the people waiting for a fucking parking spot were âdoucheyâ. Just that itâs not an activity I choose to partake in.
Am I a smug little fucker? Oh yeah.
I couldnât disagree more. Iâm literally shocked to hear someone come out in favor of this.
I donât get why the kid was there on his bike while the rest of the family drove. Do they routinely send him ahead as some sort of parking scout/hunter?
But thatâs what those spots are for. If theyâre not being used by people who need them (like you did), then theyâre just wasted space.
If I were injured, I might be wary of taking the last handicapped space for that reason, and I probably wouldnât take the closest, but if my options were getting a permit and using a handicapped space, dealing with intense pain and hassle by parking a distance away, or dealing with the greater hassle of musical parking spaces, Iâd like to think Iâd swallow my pride and get the permit. More realistically, judging from when I last sprained my ankle, Iâd swallow the pain and hoof it.
So, they cost you time, effort, and frustration, and hurt your feelings by ignoring a social convention, and you cost them (probably) multiple hundreds of dollars to replace their tires by breaking the law.[quote=âclifyt, post:93, topic:78209â]
this was a phase in my life and Iâm very glad Iâm no longer in this one.
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Iâm glad to hear it, and I agree 100%.
My feeling about the circling-vs-camping and first-come-first-served is that Just-keep-circling works, and Iâm in favor of it, as long as there is a decent amount of turnover. If hardly anybody is leaving but more cars keep coming, it feels more fair to me that all cars interested in parking there should have a single queue, because when spots get too scarce, spots tend to get awarded to the most aggressive, not on the basis of random distribution. Not being willing to be confrontational shouldnât mean Iâm late for work. Of course, that isnât really part of the unwritten rules, and parking lots arenât really built for it, so itâs just my personal dream. Easier to make it happen in retail stores (when a bunch of people are waiting for multiple cashiers- If a situation is ambiguous I always try to steer it to one line rather than multiple lines).
