"saving" a parking space while the driver moves the car

[Hopandaskip]

(NB: 1)there is more information, but I don't want to add it yet because I believe there are two different issues at stake and want your answer on the first bit before the extra info complicates it (If this is annoying to you, please feel free to go read another thread)
2) I will only be around for a shortish while. I am on a different time zone and I'm going to be AFK for much of tomorrow (your today most probably). If I do not respond immediately, or even within 36 hours then that is why)

I was in a car park today that has a high turnover. It wasn't particularly busy and within 5 minutes two or three spaces had opened up in the same area. I wanted a particular spot and when it opened up I sent my 11yo over to stand in the spot with our stuff while I moved my car (about 50 ft, not 5 minutes away). While I moved my car someone else decided they wanted that spot too and told my son he had to move. He replied that his mum was bringing the car over and she repeated that he had to move and started moving the car forward towards him (!) so he would get out of the way. I jumped out and tried to explain but the situation quickly deteriorated to shouting (oops, not my finest hour)

Sooo what I'm asking is...

1. can you 'save' spaces for someone by standing in them for a minute?
2. Who should have the spot? Is it the one who saw it first and claimed it, or the one who brings their car around?
3. does it matter how busy somewhere is? (it shouldn't in this particular case, but in future)

No to saving a spot. Sorry!

Was it because the desired spot was in the shade?

Yabu

Very odd behaviour from you! A parking space is a parking space. First come, first served.

Only disclaimer would be if wheelchair access was needed.

I'm baffled by this so just marking my spot to get the second half of the story...

No YABU. she shouldn't have driven towards your son, but he shouldn't have been put there.

also fascinated to hear the other info...

Aaahhhhh think I have Sussed it.

Had you just bought something really big/heavy from a shop beside the space so needed it to pick the item up?

The only time the 'seeing it first' rule can be invoked it when you're waiting next to the space for another car to pull out and free it. If another car comes round just as said car pulls out and tries to nip in then you can freely refer them to the rule. There is however, no 'sending pedestrian to save space' clause.

Sorry, but rules are rules, and you are wrong.

Crikey this happened to me last summer.

We were on a break in the UK at the coast and it was hot and sunny at at a popular beach. I had the kids with me and was driving round and round this blasted car park hunting a space. Trying to be patient. The accross the rows i saw a car shift - joy!

Drove round there asap only to find a smug looking woman standing in ti woth her arms folded and a face on that said "sorry - but tough".

Didn't know the right thing to do - didnt want to enter into a slanging match in front of the kids - so drove on ....

Standing in a space is not on!!!

I cant think of any extra bit of vital information the OP can give us which couldn't apply equally well to the first driver to arrive at the space- eg: OP may have a disabled badge but so might the driver arriving at the space. Ditto for collecting a large item/ parking in shade etc

No you can't save a space.

Otherwise people would be leaving children, orange cones and beach towels all over carparks.

1. can you 'save' spaces for someone by standing in them for a minute? no
2. Who should have the spot? Is it the one who saw it first and claimed it, or the one who brings their car around? First come first served in car
3. does it matter how busy somewhere is? (it shouldn't in this particular case, but in future) no

Also.....

Blue badge holders also should work on first come first served. All blue badge holders are equal and doing it any other way and debating who needed it most curls my toes. Some disabilities are invisible and people shouldn't feel they have to discuss their personal situation in public in order to secure a parking space.

"there is more information, but I don't want to add it yet because I believe there are two different issues at stake and want your answer on the first bit before the extra info"

translates as "I am going to drip feed if not enough people tell me I was in the right"

and why bother posting and then telling everyone you are wandering off for the next couple of days, in that case, why not post the whole story from the beginning..

I don't think the OP did anything wrong. Ok, it's not the done thing and it would never occur to me to do it, but it was only a few minutes and really, what's the big deal?
The other driver was way out of order though. And as for people who say they would block the spot, Manners, anyone?

But Vess, the OPs son had blocked the spot.

Unless there is a very good reason for space saving, which in a big car park with plenty of other spaces, I cant think of... then both drivers sound rather crazy.

YABU if you were already parked in a space why go through the palaver of moving to one 50 feet away? Also it is unacceptable and stupid to send a child to stand in a parking space, you're lucky he wasn't knocked down, not all drivers are careful when parking, I've nearly been hit a few times by people reversing without looking properly.

Squeaky- I'm afraid I am thinking along the same lines!
Sounds a bit suspicious to say 'I can only give you half the story.. There's a vital piece of information which I'm going to withhold at the moment and I won't be around for a couple of days!'

It all smacks of buying some time to see what peoples reactions are, and then trying very hard to come up with some bizarre reason which trumps any other driver who actually got to the space first. All a bit childish methinks-- especially when there were other spaces in that same bit of car park

Saving spaces is rude. If you had such a good reason for need that particular space (I can't think of what it would be), why drive towards it then ask the other driver very nicely if they'd mind moving for x reason? That might still be a bit cheeky but obviously if it were something like you needing the last space that was anywhere near the lifts as you're struggling to walk, lots of people would be ok with moving for you.

I think there was probably some good reason for saving, and if I were the other driver, I'd think that too.

I might initially feel a bit miffed, but frankly you have to be some kind of arse to get so on your high horse as to intimidate an 11 year old and I'd think you were the sort of person who needed to watch your blood pressure.

I meant people who would block the spot after the OP's son was already there, squeakytoy. Seriously, can't people let something as trivial as that go?

YABU I have never heard of anyone doing this before.

yabvu

Vess, maybe the other driver had the same pressing need as the OP to have that particular space...

I doubt there is any sensible reason why the OP would have needed to get her son to block a space in a busy car park so she could move her already parked car 50m so she could park in it.

Car parks make people a bit crazy at the best of times. Bonkers behaviour like this (in a busy car park) just makes things worse.

I can half imagine there might be a reason ...

one time I pulled into a parking space, and it was one of those rows of parking along the middle of a street so you can pull in from either side. Someone decided to try to drive in from the other side as I was straightening up, wound down his window and asked me to move. I was really arsey about it and told him to get lost. He argued for quite some time before saying '... and my mother is in the back and she can't walk properly, and all the other spaces are a very long way away'. I thought he was taking the piss and ignored him.

Then I saw him stop to get his, yes, very elderly and frail mother with her walker out of the car. I felt like such a twit.

YABU!

at the vision I have in my head of all of this.

Feel sorry for your DS.

Nothing more to add but just getting in line to hear the next instalment.