So I had an altercation at the hospital this morning in the carpark with a man. It's a community hospital if that makes a difference (so nobody there is in a life or death situation, they only have minor injuries, outpatients, physio and scans etc) with a tiny car park which is almost always full. There are no arrows on the floor anymore so it's a bit of a free for all, but the 'aisles' are wide enough for 2 cars and so the general consensus seems to be you all drive around at random and then it's basically pot luck as to who happens to be near a space when it becomes empty, like a really dull and fuel wasting game of musical chairs.
I'd been driving round for about 10 minutes when as I got the end of an aisle, I saw a mum and child approaching their car in the space I was perpendicular to, so I reversed back out of their way and put my indicator on to signal I was going to pull in when they left.
Another car appeared the other side of them and pointed at the space in what I thought was an 'are you going in there' fashion so I signalled/mouthed yes I am, but he didn't move. The car pulled out and I pulled in, and the man jumped out and ran over to my car telling me that was his space . He said that he'd followed them as he came in the entrance round to their space and that therefore it's his space. I pointed out that I had also seen them coming and was by the car and was already indicating for the space before he even came into my view and so was entitled to park there ( obviously if he had been in view and indicating to the space already I would have been unreasonable to push into it first, but that wasn't the case) he started shouting why did I think that the rules didn't apply to me and that it didn't matter I'd been there longer, I deliberately didn't raise my voice but simply stated there are no 'rules' and I was entitled to park there, he then changed tact to yelling 'move your car' at me which I replied once to to say no, he then started saying 'well you might find your car blocked in when you come back ' by this time I was unloading my bag out the car and just said if that was the case I would get the security team involved when I returned to my car. I was shaking a bit at this point as felt quite vulnerable with my young baby in the back of the car too but focussed on not raising my voice or escalating the situation, and when it became apparent I wasn't moving (or he saw me get the buggy out, not sure which) he eventually got back in his car and continued driving round with everyone else. When I came back to the car after my appointment he was parked a few cars down.
I'm now wondering though if I was unreasonable and while I know there's no enforceable rules, have I broken car park etiquette? Surely if it was a thing that you followed people from the entrance, everyone would wait at the entrance to the car park and then drive in when they had a returner to follow?! Obviously if I had seen him waiting or he was already stationary when I got there it would have been different, but I also saw them returning to the car and was there first, even if I had seen him making his way to the space it would have been impossible to know that's where he was heading and not the exit from another space, surely it's just bad luck on his part (in the same way it was bad luck when I drove past a space only for them to pull out and the person who was behind me in the car park got it within seconds of them entering the car park)
So was I unreasonable? I've attached a diagram to try and show the layout if it helps at all!