Sorry to hear about your dent, but a philosphical approach is definately the best way to cope with a situation like this
......which leads me nicely to the opposite end of the spectrum. Having parked a regular mix of nearly new (shiny and dent free) and battered dustbins in our local supermarket, after a period of constant nagging concern over parking space selection and assesssment of the adjacenet drivers potential reversing abilities, I have to say that the almost smug, calm, free from worry feeling that Ive had from parking a dustbin can be so tangible you can almost bottle it.
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I always park using two bays at the local supermarket i.e. directly over a white line so that there is a half-bay space on each side or, alternatively, on one of the hatched areas at the end of each row.
That means that even the largest 4x4 driver or passenger opening a door can't hit my VW or a stupid shopper scrape a trolley all along the side.
My last car, a Jetta, was 13 years old when we parted company - it had never been in an accident, was thoroughly reliable and the only damage to the bodywork was caused by, you've guessed it, supermarket trollies.
That's when I started to adopt the selfish approach and use two bays - I'm not bothered by some of the comments I hear about such parking, as at least I know it substantially reduces the chance of my car being damaged.
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the selfish approach
You said it.
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Yes, but much kinder on the income from my pension....:-)
It's the old, old story. Too many people aren't prepared to treat others' property in the way they should reasonably be expected to do so.
Therefore I take measures to protect my car as much as possible - it's probably the last one I will ever buy.
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Until either someone in an old banger comes along and makes a point of bashing your car or, more likely, a put out shopper who's had to park further away because of selfishness (your words) like that lets their trolley 'accidentally' roll into it.
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Yes, I hate it when trolleys roll like that. I also hate it when you finish the shopping too tired to put the trolley away and have to leave it in the way of a rudely parked car.
Do let us know where you park, Stuartli. ;-)
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I park on the extremities of a large car park - I'm not bothered about how far I have to walk to the main entrance.
My "selfishness" doesn't run to stopping the elderly or mothers with young children being able to park close to the store, merely to minimise the risk of my car being damaged.
Hardly a hanging offence...:-)
I've tried the normal way in the past and ended up forking out for the damage to be repaired.....
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My "selfishness" doesn't run to stopping the elderly or mothers with young children being able to park close to the store, merely to minimise the risk of my car being damaged.
How do you know? Do you have the necessary psychic powers to foretell that the car park will not fill up enough for your parking to offend?
As someone who regularly has to carry or escort young children across a busy roads and carparks because the nearest space is miles away because no-one can park properly, I do object. Sorry and all that.
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I thought my English was good enough to convey the fact that I minimise the risk of causing problems for the elderly or mothers with young children because I park on the extremities of the car park.
I quite agree with you that many motorists have no idea how to park properly or in the wrong place - look, for instance, how many disabled bays are taken up by those "just nipping in for a moment", parking on pavements or ending up three or more feet away from a kerb.
As for psychic powers, if mine were any good I'd get all six winners at one of today's race meetings....:-)
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Stuartli,
A very selfish approach to community spirit, but, partly omehow understandable given the size and poor design of most car parks. An approach I would might also take if only my morality didnt get in the way and stop me from doing so, along with using Disabled and Family spaces.
Instead I usually find a empty part of the car park and walk and extra 50 m to the shop. Its healthier for me too (self appeasement completed).
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You posted whilst I was typing...:-)
I've no problem with how far I have to walk - I do about 12-15 miles a week taking the dog out around one of the local golf courses.
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I feel uneasy about parking anywhere other than in my own garage. Even then, I'm not happy until I've closed and locked the garage door! Paranoid or what!
--
L'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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What Stuart is doing is simply an act of self-preservation, selfish as may be, and whatever the objections, the fact is that most car parks are designed to cram as many spaces in to the area available.
Because of this, the potential for vehicle damage in a (typically) supermarket car park is legendary, and I suspect that what Stuart does is in fact, deep down, what we all feel like doing at times.
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Thanks for the comments, although it's the car that I'm trying to preserve - at my age I'm not really worth preserving...:-)
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Whilst I understand why you want to take up two spaces for one car I take issue with your comment about other people's treatment of property. It's a little bit rich to comment on other peoples inconsiderate behaviour to your property whilst being selfish yourself - two wrongs don't make a right.
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At least I'm not damaging other peoples' property, merely protecting my own.
I would only be being selfish if I parked close to the supermarket itself, rather than on the fringes of what is a big car park.
To be quite frank if Tesco turned it into a drive through supermarket I'm sure that 75 per cent of the car driving customers would be bashing each other out of the way at the doors....:-)
What I do consider selfish is owners of 4x4s or vans whose full width occupation of a car bay means that those who have already parked on either side have great difficulty, on return, in getting in and out of their vehicles.
Not much fun for older or not as agile as they used to be drivers and/or passengers.
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There are usually spaces with clear access on one side. Would it not be more considerate to choose one of those and be able to get back in without difficulty. Passengers can then wait for you to drive or reverse out.
If the car park is so full that there are no such spaces left then taking two spaces is likely to be very rude indeed.
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As I wrote earlier, I thought my English was good enough to convey my views - where have I stated I have difficulty in getting in and out of my vehicle?
My point all along is that I use two bays, at the extremities of the car park, to prevent damage to my car.
So far the car park, even on the traditionally very busy Saturday morning, has never been absolutely full, although it has been very close at times as it is one of the three busiest Tesco stores in the UK.
So I may appear rude, as you term it, or selfish by others, but I've never actually prevented anyone from claiming a parking space to date.
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As I wrote earlier, I thought my English was good enough to convey my views - where have I stated I have difficulty in getting in and out of my vehicle?
"those who have already parked on either side have great difficulty, on return, in getting in and out of their vehicles. "
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"....THOSE who have already.." plus "..in and out of THEIR vehicles.."
This is not written in the personal sense.
You are reading what you want to read, not what you are reading.
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Thought you were speaking in the general rather than the specific - the third person rather than the first. Or whatever one calls it.
Never mind.
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Your thought was right on the mark i.e a general observation. So why interpret it as an incident involving me? If it had been I would have made it very clear.
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"Whatever one calls it" ... (sic)
I had intended to express that I thought you were referring to yourself and others. Thus, (for example) when people (in general, including me) are looking for a car parking space they find it very annoying to discover that there would be a space for them were it not for the person parked across two spaces.
First, I see that I expressed this less than clearly, and apologise. Quits?
Second, I seem to have incorrectly suggested that you are less than 100% sprightly, and I again apologise.
I still think that taking two spaces is inconsiderate, though.
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As you've said "in general, including me" you should have said "we", not "they". You've omitted yourself in this instance.
As for being sprightly, I might be approaching my State pension, but I still do about 12-15 miles a week with the dog on one of the local golf courses...:-)
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The brackets were to clarify.....
I'm going to stop now, before we get into a discussion about grammar and mapmaker feels the need to join in.
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>>but I still do about 12-15 miles a week with the dog on one of the local golf courses
Cool. My dogs are pretty good swimmers, but playing golf is well beyond them.
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Have you seen the cartoon with three men and a dog playing poker?
One bloke is whispering to another "He's not that good really. He always wags when he has a good hand"
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Someone else making it up as they go along...:-)
One of my town's private golf clubs has a long section of the public coastal path routed between several of its fairways - golfers are therefore familiar with seeing dog walkers.
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In case it will help, I recall admitting to having problems getting in and out myself:
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?v=e&t=19...6
:o)
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Don't ever try it in a railway-station car park. (Actually, some of the posters might say 'DO' try it in a railway car park.)
Parking across 2 spaces is a fixed penalty notice offence - £40; £80 if not paid within 2 weeks.
I once got done for parking at Cambridge railway station in a large area without lines whatsoever for being badly parked (There were at least 20 cars in this area! mine was the edge one.). Thankfully on appeal they reversed their decision.
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Lets all keep our toys in the pram please.
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When I park in multi storey carparks I try to park beside the vertical uprights. There is more space on the pillar side between mine and the next car, most people don't like parking there and I can edge closer to the pillar and leave more space at the other side.
I do drive a Fiesta so that helps of course. If I had a 4x4 it would be impractical imo
madf
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I know a car park shared by a supermarket and other stores where you used to get clamped if you weren't parked correctly within the bay.
Growler -
When you get a new car, why not immediately put a dent in it yourself, granting immediate lasting relaxation?!
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Yes, and that's happening more and more because of stupid and or just plain selfish behaviour on the part of some motorists towards others. With more cars on the road and more pressure on space we can all look forward to more monitoring and controls on our driving, parking etc. (as demonstrated in the 'automatic fines for illegal manoeuvres' thread). To be fair to the 'double bay parker', nobody appreciates getting their property damaged, however that doesn't give us the right to behave inconsiderately ourselves. Parking over 2 bays and/or on hatched areas is inconsiderate and 2 wrongs don't make a right.
The other day I saw an Toyota Previa parked entirely over the pavement on a sharp bend in a major A road. Slim Jim's anorexic twin couldn't have got past without risking life and limb to walk in the road. No doubt the owner would have justified their selfishness/stupidity by claiming they were only trying to avoid damage to the vehicle from passing traffic. OK, so I don't want my car to get damaged and I'm too lazy to park somewhere else and walk a few extra yards so I block an entire pavement and force children, OAP's, mums with pushchairs etc. to walk in the road and then I've got the gall to complain about all the terrible OTT policing motorists are subject to. Great!
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Tunacat LOL I let my partner handle such matters........
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Lets all keep our toys in the pram please.
And nicely lined up in their proper spaces!
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As my wife is disabled, we always park in a disabled parking bay, if we can. Yesterday, after we had finished our shopping we came out to find a foot long brown scuff mark on the back bumper. The brown mark was easy enough to remove, but it has removed the paint in places and left a long scratch. There was at least six feet between our car and the one next to it, on the side where the bumper was scraped.
Heaven knows how it was done, as a trolley wouldn't leave a dirty brown mark (I don't think). There was a Securicor van parked up nearby and I saw one their staff shuttling back and forth with cash boxes, between our car and the next, so perhaps she was the culprit. She wasn't going to own up of course, if it was her. I think painted bumpers are worse than steel bodywork in terms of scratch resistance, as the paint seems to come off very easily and it is not possible to buff out any scratches.
This latest incident happened immediately after finding a four inch long, deep scratch on the front bumper just before setting out on our shopping trip. I strongly suspect the local paper boy. He insists on staying on his bike and cycling up and down peoples' drives and front yards. It is not the first time I have found scratches and dents on our cars when they have been parked on the drive.
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Another problem with the Galaxy is that it is so wide - most parking bays do not offer sufficient room to allow you to park on the white line one side, and be able to open a door to a reasonable amount on the other side. You have to hope that the people who park both sides of you will leave a reasonable gap between their car and the white line too. Try parking a Galaxy in a "normal" garage and then opening the door to get out - it's tricky! In fact, you have to fold at least one mirror in just to get through the garage doorway because the ca is so wide - wider than many 6ft6in width restriction poles.
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I find the parent and child spaces are very useful - when I have my mum with me.
(only joking).
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Last week I had the misfortune to park in a multistory in Durham, down by the river side.
The spaces were so narrow that I had to let my passengers out before going into the space and I still had trouble getting out of the driver's door.
I was driving a Honda CRV of average width.
On paying at the exit the chap told me that people complain "all day every day".
Diabolical.
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I was driving a Honda CRV of average width.
I didn't know they came in different widths. Where do I order a narrow one?
Seriously though, multi-storey car parks are designed to squeeze the maximum number of cars into the minimum of space whilst still maintaining the required structural components (dirty great uprights to support the precast concrete floor/roof sections).
This problem is exacerbated in taller carparks on small plots of land, where the pillars are at every third space due to the increased loads. In this carparks I have yet to get in a space next to a pillar and have passengers exit from either side. Or they can exit, but have to climb over the car to get anywhere.
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No - the trouble is that most 60's Car Parks where designed when people drove Morris Minors, Austin A35's and the largest cars where Ford Consuls etc. You compare the size of an Austin A60 to that of a Galaxy or Honda CRV and you can see why most '60's car parks have nice multi-coloured scapes on most of the ramp walls. Then you have S class Mercs or Audi A8s. A coule of years ago, I managed to ding my brand new E class Merc in a car park, yep, on the ramp. doh
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Well the Zodiac, Zephyr and Consul were all reasonably large, then there's the Rover P5, the Vauxhall Victor......
One of the car parks in Poole (Dolphin Centre, previously known as the Arndale) was opened in 1969 yet has larger spaces than the 70's built Orchard car park. The latter is a taller car-park on a smaller footprint.
Perhaps at this point I should disclose that my first job out of school was working as an estimator for a subsidiary of Tarmac Structural Concrete and many of the multi-storey car parks erected in the UK in the late 80's came across my desk at some point. Our drawing office chappies were forever bemoaning the difficulties that the smaller footprint/more floors approach presented.
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Funny thing is that as a boy I thought my dads Consol was HUGE!! Saw one the other day on the motorway and i was suprised at how narrow it looked in comparison these days.
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Well the Zodiac, Zephyr and Consul were all reasonably large, then there's the Rover P5, the Vauxhall Victor......
I think you would be surprised by how big these cars actually weren't.
By comparison they really are quite small by today's standards.
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Last week I had the misfortune to park in a multistory in Durham, down by the river side. The spaces were so narrow that I had to let my passengers out before going into the space and I still had trouble getting out of the driver's door. I was driving a Honda CRV of average width. On paying at the exit the chap told me that people complain "all day every day". Diabolical.
If it's the same one I'm thinking of, not only are the spaces ridiculously narrow, but so are the lanes between them, so that you have to play trains to get in and out, even though the spaces are angled. I had trouble getting my old Seat Ibiza in and out of there, which was not exactly a large car.
I can only assume that the architect enjoyed bashing toy cars into each other and against the skirting-board when young. Presumably the idea is to make the whole "parking experience" so stressful that people give up and leave their cars at home.
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make the whole "parking experience" so stressful that people give up and leave their cars at home.
I'd ask you to keep quiet and not to give "them" ideas, but I think its too late in this case...
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A standard car park space is a minimum of 1.8m by 4.8m, which was set in stone a long time ago, i.e. when cars were smaller (as posted above).
The car park by the Bailly tower in York conforms to this and is incredibly tight.
Bluewater "shopping valley" in Kent has lovely big spaces, which is a pleasant design touch in that they have put comfort over maximum profit.
Of course, all parking is free at Bluewater and there's acres of space but I hope it could be a precedent.
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Going back to an earlier discussion, re parking accross two bays.
Perhaps if we all did this supermarkets would see their turnover decrease as half their customers could no longer access the shop, and then maybe re-paint the carpark with slightly bigger spaces and install a proper CCTV system so the hit-and-runners could be traced.
or we could all buy those plastic CityRover streetwise things.
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If car manufacturers keep making each new version of a current model that little bit larger (the current Polo for instance is as big as the Mk1 Golf), even Bluewater might start to seem cramped.
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If car manufacturers keep making each new version of a current model that little bit larger (the current Polo for instance is as big as the Mk1 Golf), even Bluewater might start to seem cramped.
Yeah, I hear that the MkII mini has been such a success that BMW are looking to buy rights to the Transit chassis for the MkIII.
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BMW are looking to buy rights to the Transit chassis for the MkIII.
So they're going to make it slightly smaller than the MkII then?
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">> BMW are looking to buy rights to the Transitchassis for the MkIII.
So they're going to make it slightly smaller than the MkII then?"
but faster, and with better handling!
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">> BMW are looking to buy rights to the Transit >> chassis for the MkIII. >> So they're going to make it slightly smaller than the MkII then?" but faster, and with better handling!
And of course, if they use some bodymork too it'll look more like the original Mini.
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