Taking up two parking spaces

BET this has happened to you. You come across a parking space at a busy commercial area in town.

Only problem is, the only place you can squeeze your car into is not exactly parallel to the lines that the city council or parking bay management has drawn out on the road because the other cars are all parked on an angle.

Because you are in a rush, and basically do not have a choice, you go ahead and manoeuvre your vehicle into that space anyway, regardless of the fact that the rear of your car is going across the parking line.

And when you get back to the parking lot after doing whatever you had to do, you discover that yours is the only vehicle left there and it is very obviously taking up not one, but two parking lots.

So you rush to get into your car and try your very best to avoid those hostile, accusing glares from other civic-minded motorists and quickly reverse out of the parking spaces.

Yes, this happens even to the most civic-minded drivers among us. It really is not our fault if it seems that we took up two parking spaces. There is always one driver who sets off this rather annoying chain reaction.

That one driver who first gets to the parking lot while it is still relatively empty and decides that he or she can park any how because it really doesn’t matter (to him or her, that is).

These days, there seems to be one too many of these drivers who seem to have lost all sense of spatial relation. It really makes you wonder what they teach in driving schools.

Or maybe, driving schools should not use little cars like the Kancil to teach new drivers how to park, because the minute they get their driving licences and drive bigger cars, they fail big time at parking.

But then again, the Eye has seen even drivers of little cars (a friend calls them “half-a-car”) who are simply hopeless at parking.

A close friend shared of his experience in the United States. Drivers who do not respect the parking line and take up more than one space, or park their cars too close to another, risk their own vehicles getting keyed.

Getting keyed basically means that another irate driver may just leave a nice long scratch on the body of the vehicle that he or she is not happy with.

An eye for an eye, they say. However, keying the vehicle that is not parked properly, or causing any damage to the vehicle in any way will not solve the problem.

To the Eye, this would be advocating aggressiveness and well, it just goes to show that you are no better than the dude who does not want to park his car properly.

Another friend suggests having stickers or pre-printed notes suggesting the drivers learn to park properly on standby and placing them on the windscreens of vehicles that take up more than one parking space.

Again, what if this particular vehicle and driver were merely victims of a driver who had earlier disrupted the parking order?

It is easy for some to say, “Don’t park next to them lah, if you don’t want to seem to also take up extra space!”

Sometimes we have no choice, especially where parking spaces are limited. And yes, many times, we end up seeming like the bad guys, when the actual perpetrator conveniently goes off after throwing everything and everyone off course.

If one was to suggest that parking in two spaces be made illegal by law, it would be difficult to enforce.

First of all, not all parking spaces are managed by the local authorities. How do you keep drivers in parking bays in shopping complexes in order? There is no way that the management of these malls can afford living, walking parking guides in their car parks.

There is a reason why parking bays are marked out with lines. These lines are guides for each driver to park his or her car in the designated space. Each designated space exists for a couple of reasons – to make sure that cars are parked in an orderly manner and to ensure that each car has enough space so that it does not get damaged.

Unfortunately, not all drivers are civic-minded. We are getting more drivers who are just too arrogant to acknowledge the fact that the world does not revolve around them.

Manners begin at home, and bad habits are established from young they say. If a driver has the habit of taking up more than one parking space and is rude on the road, it all boils down to their upbringing, wouldn’t you say?

Comments can reach the writer via columnists@theborneopost.com.