Park your Attitude

Two attitudes to parking, observed on the same day and within an hour of each other.

The first illustrates the inconsiderate and anti-social parker.

The car above is blocking the exit from the carpark in front of Raheny Supervalu. Much to my amazement, I saw the woman park it there and then calmly head for the supermaket entrance. It was not long before those attempting to exit the carpark realised they were bottled in and started leaning on the horn.

Now, I hate this sort of arrogant in your face parking and I had seen the culprit. So I sought her out in the supermarket. She wasn't hard to find, well dressed, short skirt, arrogant and disregarding manner.

"People are trying to get out of the car park" said I.

"Oh?" and off she went at speed. Job well done thought I.

As I rounded the corner of the next aisle, there she was, calmly continuing with her important shop.

"You are blocking the exit", said I.

"I am in the middle of a shop, what can I do?", implying that she could hardly rush past the checkout with her half filled shopping basket.

"You could leave your basket here, go out and move your car, and then come back in and continue your shop"

"Have you nothing better to do than (mutter, mutter)?", and flounced off towards the checkout.

"What you have done is inconsiderate and anti-social", I shouted after her.

Minutes later I saw her calmly queueing at the checkout. I restrained myself from giving further vent to my feelings. I didn't fancy a man(scuse)slaughter charge. It was only afterwards that an alternative strategy struck me.

My messsage here: You know who you are. I know who you are. An apology to the motorists you kidnapped in the carpark would be in order. Or maybe a contribution to your favourite charity. Oh, but that would be you, wouldn't it. Forget it.

Moving on, I then came across another piece of apparently inconsiderate parking. A large van had parked in a space measured out for a normal car. I have come across this before and it limits the adjacent car driver's ability to get into the car through the driver's door. And I'm sure most drivers know what it's like trying to get into the driver's seat through the passenger door. Ouch.

But, wait a minute. A closer look showed that the van had not fully backed into the parking space and left the other driver a perfect exit, even if it did mean climbing a small incline to reach the footpath.

A wrong, and a wrong wrighted. All in the space of an hour.

Parking is life, life parking. But that's another post entirely.




UPDATE
17/9/2010

Here's another one. Within a few yards of our gallant Wright's parker. This one is obstructing access to the rubbish bins in an apartment complex. NO PARKING is clearly painted on the ground - half of it under the car. A furher notice on the door itself, and, ironically, and not noticed at the time, that notice reflected in the driver's window. Be nice if the great big bin lorry came along and butted him/her out of the way.



UPDATE
1/11/2010

And yet another. This one had me freaking. I was just about to pull into a space in my local library car park when this cretin drove in front of me, parked his car longways across three spaces, jumped out and ran across the road to the ATM at Bank of Ireland. After 4-5 minutes he was back, jumped in the car and whizzed off.

The library car park is reserved for those using the library and it was virtually full at that point.

In the past the library, as a public service, used to leave the car park open overnight as a facility for the general public. Unfortunately this was abused by DART travellers who parked there in the early morning on their way to town and deprived the rightful users of the facility. The car park has now had to be closed overnight to ensure access for library users during business hours, and the general public is deprived of a very useful facility out of hours. Nevertheless the library still tries to facilitate the bona fide public by leaving the car park open on Friday evenings.


UPDATE
5/11/2010

Here's yet another one. At 5pm on a Thursday, parked in almost exactly the same three spaces as the miscreant above. Is there no end to this anti-social activity?



UPDATE
12/11/2010

Another case of disregarding the parking rules. Hardly likely to be antisocial, though, unless it is left there after 10pm when the store closes.




UPDATE
27/7/11

Back to the library. The car park was full. This guy swept in, parked on the yellow lines while obstructing the disabled parking space, crossed the road to the bank, came back ten minutes later and swept away.




UPDATE
16/9/11
This was on private property, but the spaces are rationed out between the various enterprises in the business park. It did mean that a space that would have been available to me in the allocation of the firm I was visiting was needlessly blocked. Careless at best, anti-social at worst, particularly if it was indicative of habitual behaviour.




UPDATE
17/9/11
This is the Tesco car park at Clare Hall. This parking is probably best described as careless, as there is no great pressure on space here since the very popular Total Fitness health club, which shared the car park, closed.



UPDATE
17/11/11
So what's wrong with this piece of parking in a private carpark? No misalignment on any ground markings, nor any other violations on the face of it.


The answer is on the passenger window. Overstaying its welcome and perhaps should not be there at all. A serious case of parking with consequences?


Update 3 December 2011: Since doing the above update I learned that the car had been there for about a year. The critical date of 21 November 2011 (14 days after the posting of the notice) came and went and the car was still there. I wondered if the Management Company had funked it, but I noticed today that the car is now gone.




UPDATE
26/1/12
Blocking the entrance to the car park at Raheny Shopping Centre.




UPDATE
27/1/12
Blocking the parking space reserved for "Shop & Drop" at Raheny Shopping Centre. This space is supposed to be left empty for people who need assistance in bringing their shopping to the car. These would normally be the old and the infirm. There is quite a steep hill down to the rear car park and it is very easy to lose control of a loaded trolley on the way down.

This trailer is obviously involved in repairs/decoration in the complex itself, so the sin is all the greater. I am happy to report that on the following day it was parked in one of the conventional spaces.

I particularly noticed this one as I had recently heard stories of elderly people driving to the library and being very upset that all the parking spaces were taken. They then had to return home as they were not able to access the library from the nearest alternative parking.



UPDATE
9/6/12
This one was parked in the AIB carpark at the Supervalu shopping centre. It was there for at least 10 minutes and was seriously obstructing cars attempting to enter and leave the car park. An out of town registration is no excuse for anti-social carparking. I waited around a while to tackle the miscreant, but when they didn't return after 10 minutes I decided they'd added enough to other peoples misery for the day without me allowing them to add any more to mine.



UPDATE
17/8/12
This car is casually parked across part of the access road to the rear car park at Supervalu, Raheny. It is obstructing cars entering from the main road and causing queues back out onto that road and thereby blocking normal main road traffic. In addition it is obstructing the view of those attempting to exit the small car park on the left.

As it had obstructed me entering the rear car park from the road, I hung around to see who was responsible. I had to wait a half an hour for the woman who had parked it to appear. Once she reached the car, she was in like a flash, did a three point turn and pissed off, casual as you please.