Blocking me in, in a half-empty car park. Why?

people think their kids are more important than anyone elses. We used to have a school parent whose children couldn't be expected to get wet/cold/windswept and would always arrive late, as the children were being let in, stop her car by the gate while completely blocking the single width lane. She'd take her time getting her kids out, getting their stuff, sometimes walking in through the playground to their classes if she needed to speak to the teacher. All while completely blocking the road and screaming if any of the drivers she was holding up asked her to move. Never mind that other children were having to walk around her whilst getting soaked and in poor visibility. She was a total lunatic! And when the PCSO spoke to her she quoted the highway code that says you can stop for 10? Minutes to load and unload. I was so pleased when she left the school (although less pleased when she did the same at the,equally hard to access secondary school where she also blocked the coaches).

off topic but we also had the parent who converted a car trailer to fit their bike and took their kids in it several miles to school. Great, except she went at about four miles an hour along the narrow lanes, wouldn't pull over for anyone so made other parents (and even teachers) late and insisted on wheeling the whole thing into the playground so it wouldn't get stolen or blocked by the parent above (the bike couldn't reverse or turn round with the trailer attached). Caused chaos every day until it got stuck in the gateway so everyone had to exit from the other side of the school and was banned by the head.

My hand would have been on the horn. Why would you block someone in

Ticks off the bingo card

Not sure how a vehicle swinging out in front of me into the passing lane or another cutting across three lanes on a roundabout in front of multiple other drivers is my fault but you do you 🤷🏻‍♀️

It’s weird parking but you weren’t blocked in.

The examples this poster has given quite clearly tells you it’s NOT her.

I imagine they're desperate to beat you to be the first out of the car park... car park etiquette / competition is a really noticeable thing among some parents at DC put of school activities!
its v bizarre how many of DC sports have (non blue badge) parents who will park in the disabled spots to be as close to door as possible, but don't actually get out the car anyway. EG a team of 8 DC will have all 5 disabled spots taken up with people collecting DC.

If they recognised you maybe they thought you were the start of a queue?

Hmm....this doesn't happen to me. You seem to be the common denominator of this sort of behaviour.....

I was thinking the same. I've been driving for 40 years and I have very rarely seen scenarios like this.

Just find a hobby, it will really help!

Are you being serious?! Seems you are quite weird for taking the time to draw it all out and vent on here!! You say you didn’t end up needing to tell them to move and you didn’t tell them to move, so what are you after !

You asked a question of ‘why?’ So I answered and just explained a possible reason for them parking like that….

Simply because the driver is lazy. They could see they wouldn't be blocking someone (you) in by parking there, and it was closest point to access the leisure centre, so why bother to spend an extra 30 seconds parking in an actual designated slot? That's what car ownership does to some people - makes them forget they have legs.

I would have put my headlights on full beam. #childish 🤣

I would have started filming them on my phone and sniggering to myself just to provoke a reaction from them.

This is such a non issue after seeing the diagram, parent is picking up child not expecting to be in car park long so rather than park in a bay they have pulled up near the path for their child to jump straight in the car. Did they see you in the car?

Ah so they had to be direct access to entrance/path so little prince/ess didn't have to walk ten more steps to the car....

Do you have to pay for parking there?

Whether you do or not, I expect that in what I generously call their mind, they aren't parking. They're waiting for their kid to come out directly across from them, given they're across from the entrance.

I'm not parking, I'm just waiting for little Johnny to hop in the car.

I think some people are just oblivious… I too have a leisure centre pick up a couple of times a week and often a car will park directly opposite me, engine idling, with headlights blazing into my car blinding me for bloody ages. I wish I was brave enough to say something but I sit and fume silently 😂

How can you not be more angry about this? I'm sat miles away in front of a computer and I am currently furious on your behalf! I get that you want to avoid confrontation but you can't let people piss all over you! Where do you draw the line?

Everyone else has managed to park in a space. Why is this person so much more important than everyone else?

Sorry - I am absolutely fuming about what this person has done!