To think you leave a full car park as soon as you can?

[IceRoadDucker]

I regularly take my mum for hospital appointments when patient transport isn't available. She can't walk more than a few hundred yards so public transport is no good. The car park is always full when we get there (Barnet Hospital mid morning, if anyone else has suffered this...) with people parking outside of marked spaces, dozens of cars circling, drivers waiting for spaces. This is the case for regular and Blue Budge spaces.

Every time we go I get the rage at people who return to their cars and spend ages faffing around before leaving. I'm not talking about helping in children or disabled passengers, setting up sat navs, or anything like that. I mean putting on lipstick, tidying up the car (?!), having a cigarette [not even allowed on hospital grounds] and other such activities. I see this when I'm sitting in my car waiting for them to leave the space so I can park and go and help mum. I already have to drop her off at the entrance and leave her to find the right department by herself, because it takes 15-30 minutes for me to get a space and she'd be late.

I'm sure sometimes there are urgent messages/calls one needs to make before driving off, or other such important things. I can't believe this is the case for all these people. I always move out of a space as soon as I can when I can see people are waiting, whether it's a car park or a petrol garage.

I can't understand why anyone would sit there and leave people waiting, especially at a hospital. AIBU?

Forgot to add, before anyone suggests it, that I'm NOT sitting there huffing and glaring at them. I know some twats will intentionally dawdle to annoy people waiting if they look impatient. I rage inside and on MN.

Perhaps people need to do something mundane in their car to gather themselves before they drive off. They may have been visiting very sick relatives, received bad news, worked a 12 hour shift, or just be exhausted from hanging around hospital waiting rooms and wards. I know I always needed a few minutes to clear the brain fog after hours of waiting and monitoring in the pro-rata day unit. I suspect DH did too before his hour long drive to a busy work shift after visiting poorly DD in neonatal.

Pre-natal not pro rata.

I tend to sit and digest any news I've been given and ring dh and my parents to update them.

half of them probably work there, and need to make work-related calls - if I'm at a different hospital site from the one where my office is I can never seem to find an available phone.

Singing is right. I worked as a carer for a lady with complex health needs and if she was in hospital, every day I left her could mean I wasn't returning to her the next day, so it was always hard for me to just get in the car and drive away, knowing that she could pass away in the night. I needed a few minutes to digest any news we'd had that day and get myself into "me" mode rather than "carer" mode. I understand how frustrating it is, I really do but if we didn't do it, we wouldn't be safe to drive as our minds would not be concentrating on driving

They could be waiting for somebody else to come out of hospital.

They could be trying to digest news they have been given.

They could be composing themselves so they don't arrive home upset and upset their children.

Whatever their reason, they can take as long as they like so long as they are legally parked and have paid the relevant fee.

I've often had to had a sit in the hospital car park before driving off, either to phone DH and update/be calmed down before driving home or to just digest what has occurred...DH didn't drive when I had a MC, I drove to and from the hospital so I had to sit and get myself together before I drove off, to anyone looking on I probably looked quite selfish...better than crashing later on though!

I always do this when I finish work. Just sit in the card for a couple of minutes doing nothing before I start the car to go pick DD up.

YADNBU for talking about anything other than the EU.

You have my sympathies, i missed many an appointment at Barnet as i was circling for a space. In fact when i went into (early) labour i just abandoned my car on the lines down to the main drop off point as there were no spaces.
Barnet is particularly bad, the only faffing i did was to give the person waiting for my space my ticket.

I can see why if you had some bad news it might take you a while to compose yourself to drive off though.

The problem is when you have a hospital like my local hospital - there is not enough parking by a long way. People are trying to come in to get to important appointments and they can't park. You see someone hanging about in their car and it's hard to give them the benefit of the doubt because you've already been driving around in circles for 15 minutes and you know you're going to be late.
I had this for all my ultrasound pregnancy scans. I was lucky, DH came to them all and could drop me off, then drive away and park in a side street, often some distance away. Not everyone can do that.
I'm currently undergoing physio for a chronic pain condition. I could have had it at my local hospital, or travel for just over half an hour to another. I chose the travel as it doesn't have a stupid car park.
I can understand the reasons given so far though.

I sympathise with people unable to find a space - it's why I avoid 3-4 for appointments as it's the start of inpatient visiting hours at our hospital. However I tend to be a bit selfish when I'm at hospital. I rarely if ever get good news and I don't want to be a hazard on the roads.

I can add that the City Hospital in Nottingham is terrible for parking, with some people just leaving cars in all sorts of (often illegal) places because, despite giving themselves plenty of time they still can't find a space and get to their appointments on time.

Due to all the afore-mentioned reasons people often need to gather themselves mentally in order to drive home safely. It's a relief to sit in the car quietly for a short time. When I was on chemo my BIL dropped me off by the doors, but now for check-ups I use public transport - it's less stressful.

YANBU

My local hospital's car park is very, very busy. I do not waste time getting out of there, bad news or not. I would hope that others feel the same way. We all need to use the car parks so let's be considerate to others. Why needlessly increase other patients' stress? They could be going to get news of a diagnosis / be arriving for surgery / for chemo etc. My time isn't more valuable than that of others.

As a social worker i have spent many an hour ‘faffing’ in hospital car parks waiting for updates or information, making plans, waiting for appointments that were rescheduled etc. In that time i might brush my hair, put on lippy, look at stuff on my phone, lunch etc. I know it is annoying but sometimes people are faffing for good reason.

At our hospital the patients going for chemo and radiotherapy have their own, non fee paying, carpark right at the doors to the treatment centre, and rightfully so.

There is designated disabled parking near the back of Barnet hospital.
the regular parking is dreadful - always jam packed and it is very expensive.

I always get the bus as it stops right next to the hospital, but I am able to walk a reasonable distance.

Maybe a local taxi would be worth the extra expense if she gets hospital transport most of the time?

That said - other local hospitals are even worse.

The Royal Free is completely inaccessible if you are sick or disabled unless you pay for a taxi.

My mother died before I could get to her bedside because I couldn't get out of the car park once I had driven in and got stuck in the (non moving) queue.
I had just driven 300 miles.

I suppose car parks would fill up, no matter how big they were.

I can understand needing to compose yourself.

I don't think they're staff though. At least 50% of Barnet car park is dedicated staff parking--several hundred spaces. That's not the part of it I'm waiting for a space in.

3littlefrogs I'm sorry.

Much much less devastating but when I finally got to mum last week, she was almost in tears from pain because of a test she had. She kept saying she wished I was there and it was so bloody heart-wrenching that I was sitting in my car watching a woman put on lipstick.