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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Leaving a parking space because someone else wants it

185 replies

Allisnotlost1 · 25/09/2025 08:59

I left the gym this morning about 8.15 and, as I did, saw someone arrive and drive the wrong way around the car park. It’s not huge but there’s an overflow which adds about 15-20 steps onto the walk back to the building. There’s also a second overflow which would add about 60 seconds.

I sat in my car to send a difficult emails - to do with bereavement - and I did this there so I could leave it behind and come home and focus on the day. It would have taken about 5 or 6 minutes.

So I start dealing with it and the wrong way driver an older lady, just for visualisation purposes, knocks on my window and asks me if I’m leaving. Yes, I say, it not for about 5 minutes. She asks me to ‘just pull out and wait somewhere’. I say I can’t, because you’ve driven the wrong way around the car park and now you’re blocking the exit. She insists she isn’t and she ‘needs’ the space because the car park is full. She hasn’t been to the overflow.

I look at her gobsmacked, but then ask where is it she expects me to go, and she then gets flustered and says don’t worry about. Ok I say, closing my door. When I left, there were a couple of empty spaces but by then she’d parked on the grass verge on the exit road.

AIBU?

YANBU - she should have used the overflow/s or driven around a bit like anyone else.

YABU - immediately leaving the car park at busy times is just the right thing to do.

OP posts:
DysonLover1 · 25/09/2025 10:30

CatsorDogsrule · 25/09/2025 09:09

I wouldn't have stayed in the space in a busy car park, I'd have moved on. It's similar to people that faff around for ages on a petrol station forecourt when there is a queue of people waiting for the pumps.

People who hog a pump while they conduct their weekly shop in the Tesco Express. Pay for your fuel, move your car, then do your weekly shop. Simples. Winds me right up.

SnippySnappy · 25/09/2025 10:20

Meh. If there were no spaces in the overflow car parks, YA(possibly)BU. But there were spaces, so YANBU.

I wonder if she wasn't aware of the other car parks, given she also drove round the wrong way? Could be new to the gym perhaps?

Either way, rushing someone else out of a parking space is rude. My husband has type 1 diabetes and has to check his blood sugars before driving (by law they need to be at least 5.0mmol/l). If he needs to check them with a manual finger prick, this is best done in the car where he has his kitbag and testing stuff with him. It takes a couple of minutes to do the test. Perhaps he would be seen as unreasonable by sitting in the car 😂🙄

Tastaturen · 25/09/2025 10:20

TheSwarm · 25/09/2025 09:13

Sitting in your car taking up a space in a full carpark when you are finished using the facilities is a bit of a dick move.

So is driving the wrong way around.

PersephoneParlormaid · 25/09/2025 10:19

At my gym people park in disabled spaces with no blue badge, and up on the curb of the car park, just because they won’t walk 50 yards to the overflow. It’s unbelievable that people who are going there to get fit, just won’t walk 50 yards.

rookiemere · 25/09/2025 10:16

If it’s like the car park at our gym YABU. Space is at a premium and you shouldn’t be doing admin there.
Its almost as bad as people at petrol stations deciding to do their stretches/texting/ coffee sorting out whilst still at the pump.

Finteq · 25/09/2025 10:11

YANBU

And some of the posters in this thread sound batshit.

Of course you're allowed to sit in your car for 5 minutes before you leave.

I would have just told her she needed to wait. And if she huffed and puffed it was her own issue.

PistachioTiramisu · 25/09/2025 10:09

Always 'an older lady' - it wouldn't be so bad, but do you ever see reference made to 'a younger lady'??

Esmereldapawpatrol · 25/09/2025 10:07

Of course YANBU, those that are saying the car park isn't for admin have made me actually laugh. So you never get back in the car from doing whatever you have been doing and check messages or reply to someone?
I quite often buy my lunch at a supermarket and then sit in the car in the car park and eat it...oh the horror!!!
There was other parking available, the other lady just didn't want to use it, she was BU not you.

Chipsahoy · 25/09/2025 09:52

You had the space first, I often sit and eat in my car after going to supermarket or whatever.

caramac04 · 25/09/2025 09:51

Both unreasonable imo

3456DDF · 25/09/2025 09:51

Meandmyguy · 25/09/2025 09:50

Why does this stuff need a thread.

Either move or don't and just get on with your life.

Oh the irony 😂

Meandmyguy · 25/09/2025 09:50

Why does this stuff need a thread.

Either move or don't and just get on with your life.

Allisnotlost1 · 25/09/2025 09:49

columnatedruinsdomino · 25/09/2025 09:12

Yabu for remembering something so insignificant and then posting about it.

Good point!

OP posts:
Allisnotlost1 · 25/09/2025 09:48

Rosesfornoses · 25/09/2025 09:37

I never understand the posters who are so nasty about someone wanting a parking space for a genuine reason. The woman was there to use the gym. You wanted somewhere to sit and answer emails. She takes priority, she wanted to use the gym.
There was a really spiteful post on here from a poster who boasted about seeing her sister's neighbour desperately trying to park near the house so she could unload her three kids and shopping. The poster decided not to leave ( she didn't live in the road) but went back into her sister's house so they could laugh at the increasing desperation of the neighbour. The poster proclaimed smugly that no on owned road side parking.
I would not feel proud of myself for being unkind and unhelpful. One day, you may need a favour. I hope you find that give and take is important.

That’s not quite right - I’d left the gym a minute earlier and there are two overflow car parks within less than a minute extra walking.

That’s not at all comparable to deliberately making someone suffer!

OP posts:
TallulahBetty · 25/09/2025 09:48

columnatedruinsdomino · 25/09/2025 09:12

Yabu for remembering something so insignificant and then posting about it.

You must be new here, and to the concept of forums and life in general.

GameWheelsAlarm · 25/09/2025 09:48

Yanbu. The car park space is first come first served and presumably doesn't have restrictions that you must be exercising or changing/showering 100% of the time you are parked. You ould legitimately have done the emails sitting in the gym cafe and not been parked for any different length of time. She was being unreasonable, you weren't.

Allisnotlost1 · 25/09/2025 09:47

BerryTwister · 25/09/2025 09:19

Why do we need to know she was an older lady, for “visualisation purposes”? This sounds like one of those awful “check out this Karen” YouTube films.

lol, definitely not. I imagine that it would be read differently if a man had approached me than a woman. To me it made no difference. I’m also of ‘Karen age’.

for those suggesting, she also didn’t have a mobility problem, and there is nowhere (other than the other two also very close car parks) to pull over without being antisocial (eg parking on the grass verge or making it awkward for others.

And while yes I agree it’s not relevant what someone is doing by delaying, I wasn’t justifying it on that basis - just giving info. I honestly would never dream of asking someone to move for nothing other than my own convenience.

OP posts:
LoveWine123 · 25/09/2025 09:40

I'd have moved. You were both unreasonable.

3456DDF · 25/09/2025 09:40

This is why I always sit in the passenger seat if I go back to my car but am not intending to drive off straight away.

Can't be doing with feeling rushed to leave.

Rosesfornoses · 25/09/2025 09:37

I never understand the posters who are so nasty about someone wanting a parking space for a genuine reason. The woman was there to use the gym. You wanted somewhere to sit and answer emails. She takes priority, she wanted to use the gym.
There was a really spiteful post on here from a poster who boasted about seeing her sister's neighbour desperately trying to park near the house so she could unload her three kids and shopping. The poster decided not to leave ( she didn't live in the road) but went back into her sister's house so they could laugh at the increasing desperation of the neighbour. The poster proclaimed smugly that no on owned road side parking.
I would not feel proud of myself for being unkind and unhelpful. One day, you may need a favour. I hope you find that give and take is important.

Hellohelga · 25/09/2025 09:34

HelplessSoul · 25/09/2025 09:02

I'd have told her to fuck off and drive properly.

And waited even longer just to piss her off!

Youre nice

GiantTeddyIsTired · 25/09/2025 09:31

There's nothing wrong with using a parking space that you've paid for to do something in the car. If you did it in the gym reception then no-one would have been any the wiser.

She shouldn't have driven the wrong way around, and she should have just gone to the overflow parking. Wanting a certain parking spot that someone else is using is unreasonable.

Kingsleadhat · 25/09/2025 09:30

BerryTwister · 25/09/2025 09:19

Why do we need to know she was an older lady, for “visualisation purposes”? This sounds like one of those awful “check out this Karen” YouTube films.

That's what I was thinking

BerryTwister · 25/09/2025 09:19

Why do we need to know she was an older lady, for “visualisation purposes”? This sounds like one of those awful “check out this Karen” YouTube films.

chunkybear · 25/09/2025 09:19

She’s perhaps got a mobility issue and wants to park as close as possible to the gym ?