On Friday, this appeared in the Daily Star:
(Click to embiggen.)
And then this article appeared in the Daily Mail:
It is a driving habit guaranteed to enrage even the most docile motorist, but these supercar owners show such bad bay parking they have been exposed on an internet gallery of shame.They have a lot of pictures of gross offences against parking decorum (all Rollers, Porsches, Ferraris and the like), but I liked this one the best:
Whether it's parking across multiple spaces,double yellow lines or disabled bays, mega-rich motorists have had their appalling parking revealed.
It's hard being a global trend-setter, but rewarding. Call it a gift.
Microdave (to whom many thanks for the links to the above items - he reads much more widely than I do) seems to have the solution:
I love the blonde Essex Girl with the pink steering wheel cover they've used to illustrate that Star article... ;)
ReplyDeleteYes, it's infuriating. I despair at the inability of people to put a car inside a set of white lines that are bigger than it. If you can't do that, why are you driving?
ReplyDeleteBut I know plenty of owners of posh cars that are equally infuriated by people's inability to LOOK before swinging their doors open... and who consider taking two spaces to be perfectly ok, therefore.
Julia - Yes, somehow we just know she's from Essex. Something just tells us. Central Romford, I'd say... :-D
That non-violent use of shopping trolleys to coraal the offending car is a work of genius. I bet a reincarnated Gandhi collects the trolleys there, hence the witty reference to the Ashoka Chakra.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it be nice if supermarkets contracted wheel clampers to make selfish drivers' days?
I'm sorry that this blog doesn't do sound, but you just know that what she is screeching is "Eaaah! Watch aht you facking bleeder! Smy space innit!"
ReplyDeleteAs to the space use/door opening issue, the simplest answer is for car park designers to allow a little more space per car - an extra 6" for each one would make a huge difference. But I guess that commercial pressures mean that they have to squeeze as many into the available area as humanly possible. But it can have unexpected consequences. The 'new' multi-storey in Haverfordwest is shunned by many people, who continue to park in the surrounding streets even though the car park is half empty. The spaces in there are tighter than a spider crab's arse at 600 fathoms, so a) it's a real sweat getting your car in there in the first place, b) you can't get out easily once you are in there, gymnastics being required to slip out of the door, and c) the ramps and pillars seem designed to rip off bits of any car that passes. Most people hate it.
I'm sure if Tesco advertised the store as having "generous car parking spaces" they would more than make up in customer loyalty what they lost in absolute capacity.
Agreed, the shopping trolley installation is a delight.
II read an article a couple of years back - I think it was from the pen of one J Clarkson - observing that as average parking space dimensions shrunk and car sizes increased, many were insufficient to accommodate Britain's best-selling car of the time, the Ford Focus.
ReplyDeleteHe might have been exaggerating a little, of course: the recommended standard is typically 2.4 x 4.8 m, or 3.6 x 4.8 m for special needs. And Google tells me that the Ford Focus is only about 2.1 x 4.5 m (but the mirrors can be folded in to reduce width). So that actually leaves a princely 15 cm gap all around if you park it right...and a whole foot of space if everybody else does the same. Assuming they have a Focus or smaller, of course. And that the cark park designers haven't thoughtfully littered the area with pillars and bollards. Hardly generous, even under ideal circumstances and relying on there being rather more good drivers about than the evidence would actually suggest.
One might almost wonder if it's a(nother) deliberate attempt to subtly dissuade people from driving...
15cm around a focus? Ouch.
ReplyDelete"He reads much more widely than I do"
ReplyDeleteOh come now Richard - I hope you aren't trying to flatter me! I read the local rag, the Fail (but have to remember that it's all lies), and get the Star mainly for some light relief in these depressing times. There isn't usually much reading involved....
And I confess to getting one copy of the Sport recently to keep a well known overseas blogger happy - it contained enough laughs to fill several posts!