Pedestrian holding parking space

[carparkcow]

As soon as this happened today I told DH I just HAD to open it up to the wrath of AIBU... very interested to hear opinions!

We were circling the hospital car park which was extremely busy as always. Finally see a lady pulling out of a space a little further up the row and thank our lucky stars. However, as we go to pull into it there is a pedestrian stood there and says she has claimed the space for her husband and points at a car literally on the other side of the car park.

I was pretty stressed about my appointment (scan to check for MC) and essentially told the woman that she was completely out of order, this wasn't in the spirit of the law of the car park and we would happily block the space and take the fine to prevent her being able to park there, such was my fury.

So - AIBU?! SURELY this isn't acceptable behaviour??!!!!!

You could circle and wait for a space like I had to all those times.

It's a shitty "fuck you" attitude to everyone else IMHO.

@Aprilx I mentioned it to explain that I was stressed and had therefore spoken to the woman quite rudely, which is something that I usually wouldn't do at all, as I am quite shy and don't like confrontation.

I didn't mean that my appointment was more important than someone else's, I was just highlighting why I had acted in a way that some might find rude.

Oh god, I’m having trauma flashbacks to my childhood now - my mum used to make me do this. ‘Meet me in the leisure centre car park but hold me a space, by the front’.

AAARRRGGGHHH! I used to sit in the middle of the space and read a book. And mouth apologies at every driver who wanted to take it. Who probably thought I was mouthing obscenities.

Completely against all common decency and the First Come, First Served, Lucky Barstewards law of the car park. YANBU

Those who are ok with this, would they also be ok with someone throwing their coat into the space to hold it while they drive around from the other side?
Sadly, parking is car parks is not always fair but it has to be a pretty basic requirement that you are actually ready with a car to get into the space and not holding it in some other way.
Hope you are ok, OP.

@3sthemagicnumber thank you so much for your kind words, hopefully it will be the same for me 🤞

oh come off it. You cannot seriously be claiming to be unaware that some people go to hospital for totally non serious reasons. When I went to visit my friend recovering from appendicitis it was neither here nor there whether I was visiting 10 minutes sooner or later. I would absolutely think that the person there with a suspected miscarriage is more important than me.

Why would you leap to that conclusion rather than read it as an explanation as to why she was so stressed, like most posters have. Be little more generous.

Don't worry about it OP, it's really obvious.
I hope the rest of your pregnancy goes well.

@FergalforPM ah no solution then - unless you mean I should have just continued driving round until she died in my front seat and then gone straight to the morgue. She wouldn't even have messed up a bed then.......

I think you are the cheeky one. 🙄😱

If it was that much of an emergency you should have parked outside A&E.

You are drip feeding now. First she was a wheelchair user, then in pain, then close to death.

I've had similar. Circling the blue badge car park and ai knew tye other car had come in after me. I just edged forwards a bit and she moved.

She mentioned it to explain her behaviour, that she was stressed, otherwise she might have been a bit more relaxed about it.

I'm disagreeing with you, that's all. If it was that much of an emergency I would (and in fact did) leave my car at A&E in the designated drop off zone on the occasion my Mum was admitted. She never made it out of hospital either, so you can't play the drama card with me. Even in distress and difficulty one has a responsibility to others in my opinion.

You’re not a car, you can’t reserve a car parking space.
The other people also looking for a space could also ‘have time running out’.

Can’t believe this needs explaining to what I’m assuming is a grown adult

That happened to me the other day. On a lunch break, popped into a book shop cafe, bought food, and found the only free table had someone's bag on it. The bloke in question was still in the queue. Understandable but irritating!

100% agree. You can't know what the other people you are queue jumping have as their need for a space.

Nothing worse than Ethel holding a space for her husband in a 2003 Rover 45.
Or do you mean a Range Rover (which isn’t the same thing, this isn’t America)

I would edge my car into whatever part of the space was free from the clown then sit there until she moved

meh. Wouldn't bother me hours later.

It might not be in the spirit of car park etiquette but I suspect they were driving round and round getting stressed trying to park too

I mean a Rover, obviously. If I meant a Range Rover I'd have said, a Range Rover.

All anecdotal of course but every single person I have ever seen do this in 30 odd years of driving has been an older woman with an older man husband in a Rover or a Mercedes.

But did she move in the end ? 🤷 how did it end did you get the space ?

It's a carpark, not a person park. First car come, first car served. I have only ever watched this happen to someone else but if someone tried to do it in a space I was next in line for I would drive into the space right up to them and lean on the horn until they moved. The same as people that put cones out in public spaces. I move them (or, in one case, ran over it, slightly by mistake).

Totally agree hospital top trumps is very unsavoury so I’m surprised you brought up dying relatives. The luck of the draw is which car gets there first. If everyone chucks their passengers out to scrabble infront of cars the poor driver with no passenger will never get parked

I would've wet myself laughing.