Would you park like this?

[Wertie]

Second time I’ve had a disagreement at my local station. The spaces are narrow and the carpark is very very popular. Gold dust spaces, but Tbf there is a carpark 4 min walk away that’s bigger. The station one is pokey car park not really suitable for many modern cars.

On a number of occasions I’ve found very large 4x4 cars right up to the white lines. I have an old low car, thin doors. I’m slim. I can park between two of them and get out without touching their car with my doors. It’s a squeeze, but no contact at all.

Im guessing their thick doors and higher doors make this difficult, particularly if they aren’t petite. As it’s not a disabled space I’m restricting (there are wide separate spaces the other side for disabled drivers) I just park if I can park, and don’t concern myself with other cars. If I can fit, I’m in my own space I see it as fair play.

Twice I’ve come back to moody car owners of the huge cars.

My view is if their car is huge/ they struggle to get in then they should use the half empty nearby car park as it has wider spaces and you can park at the back without neighbours. I don’t see why I should walk it, if I have no needs for extra space.

Ive just had a really screamy outraged woman shouting I should consider the space taken if I’m blocking access.

I’m maybe an arsehole, as I laughed it off. But do others agree? Do this?

You have the space left by the car on your passenger side, if that is too tight you move out of the spot. Anyone in the back can enter through the driver side.

That's not feasible with children or people with limited mobility. I completely get your sentiment but the results will be exactly the same if everyone just parks properly

You'd have to park bang on right in the centre between two lines for that. You can be parked between the lines but if you're even slightly off centre you then limit space.

But if your target was a white line to park on, there's more chance of parking correctly to give space on either side.

People do much better when they can aim at something as opposed to between two reference points.

This is what the photo shows.

But at the same time we need to standardise parking bays in the UK because they vary in size. You can park in the centre and still have to squeeze out in some places. That's why some take up two spaces.

@DownNative I do agree that the obvious solution is to update car parks to the relevant sized spaces for the above average vehicle.

You don't decide if you're right. She doesn't decide if you're right. We don't decide if you're right. The lines around the space denote where the space is. If you're parked within that, she doesn't have a leg to stand on. There was obviously room to get in and out of a vehicle because you did.

This is a bit like a lorry driver getting stuck up a cul-de-sac and yelling at the company who built it for making it so hard to turn around.

EmeraldFox · Today 08:17

I appreciate it may not work well in the UK, but even so, people are supposed to park centrally between the lines.

Parking seems to bring out the worst in some people.

I think this is where you stray into being unreasonable.

If you have to make like a snake to get out of your car then you’ve parked in a space too small regardless of what’s either side of you.

Why would you make your own and two other peoples lives difficult to make a point?

Are there really no other spaces? Round here the commuter stations are packed to the brim with old bangers - the shiny 4X4 goes out at weekends rather than risk being nicked off the station car park. To be repeatedly parking between two of them you would have to be seeking that space out deliberately.

If you have to make like a snake to get out of your car then you’ve parked in a space too small regardless of what’s either side of you.@Ghastisflabbered

The regulations specify that the car be entirely within the white lines, there aren’t any rules about how wide you have to be able to open your doors or how you have to get in and out of your car.

God forbid we should apply common sense rather than blindly following what the regulations say.

@Ghastisflabbered when it’s 6:15am and you have a train to catch in 4 minutes I’m not sure it is common sense to park further away!

I think the problem with parking centrally is that drivers of smaller cars are continually shortchanged of space by larger cars. If I round up the width of my car to 1.7m, and there are two other small cars next to mine in 2.4m spaces then I have 0.7m each side to get out. If there are two 2m wide cars either side then I only have 0.55m each side to get out. Except these large cars often don't park centrally! If there is another large car the other side of them then they will park closer to the line on my side so I have even less room. Or closer to the line of an empty spot like in the OPs situation, then complain when it was their bad parking!

If your commuter station car park is regularly so busy that at 6.15am you’re only left with a single option of shoehorning yourself between two 4x4 who have parked inconsiderately then common sense says you need to leave earlier.

Pre covid I used to get the 6.04 Euston train for instance because the 6.23 was chaos - I still didn’t knowingly park like a dick.

Again, you’d have to be pretty perverse to regularly put yourself out and cause other people issues by parking in a space where you have to wriggle out of the car when by the OP’s own admission there’s another car park to use.

The drivers of the large cars parked like dicks. They should have parked further away where there were adequate spaces for large cars, or at least parked centrally, not on the line. If no-one could park in between them then they would be selfishly taking up three spaces between two cars. The OP parked correctly.

What if she can’t leave earlier?

Why should she @Ghastisflabbered? She can get into and out of her car by parking in the centre of the parking space.

If the people in the big cars can't park in the spaces without inconveniencing other people then they either need to pay for two spaces or park further away.

YANBU. If you're reasonably central in the space and have room to open your doors, you are fine.

Someone who drives a car that's so big it struggles to fit in the spaces needs to get used to the occasional undignified clamber. (If both side doors are blocked then for most SUVs there's always entering through the boot.)

And yes, the "park on the line" idea completely fails because people can park facing either way.

Biggest dick in this is the car park owner not providing spaces big enough for the cars that are actually using the carpark so they can make more money really.

OP is also dickish in openly delighting in being thin enough to get in and blocking these other cars from doing the same (I have mobility issues and I'd struggle to get in and scramble across) and the owners of big cars were also dickish.

Basically no one has covered themselves in glory here.

‘Mindless frothing’ is only ever used to belittle women.
It is not used towards men. It’s used to make out women are hysterical creatures with little to do in their lives apart from get wound up over trivial matters.
Thats why I pulled the poster up who introduced it into the discussion. Because it’s a shot thing people solely use against women. It’s depressing from a woman.

You pulled me up but you were wrong. I'm not a misogynist. Again that's the only part of that post you responded to.

Biggest dick in this is the car park owner not providing spaces big enough for the cars that are actually using the carpark so they can make more money really.

I don't see the problem if there is another carpark with bigger spaces nearby. It's not just about the money, more spaces mean more people can use it. Though they should mark the the carpark as being for small cars only (with the exception of blue badge spots) and point out the other car park.

What brand? I NEED this

What if someone else pulls into the last fictitious tiny space between two 4x4 at 6.15am?

Well the OP has described herself the difficulty she has in getting out of the car in the space she chooses to park in.

I don’t really understand why she’s inconveniencing herself like that when she’s also admitted there are easier places to park.

So really the only reason she’s doing it is because she wants to - in which case surely it’s unreasonable to moan about it?

@Ghastisflabbered the car park is really full. She's probably one of the very few cars that can fit in that space. Why should she park further away?

Biggest dick in this is the car park owner not providing spaces big enough for the cars that are actually using the carpark so they can make more money really.

Maybe the biggest dicks in this is the car makers who design large vehicle with fat hinged doors and the people who buy them. Why don't they make them with sliding doors like various people carriers do?

Never going to happen, they'd make less money, They don't care whether big cars can park there or not, the spaces will still be taken by smaller cars!

I say crack on OP. But I'm also the sort of person who will deliberately cram my car into an impossibly small space next to a massive truck that's badly parked across two spaces and climb out through the boot if I need to just to piss them off. Maybe I'm not the best person to comment here!