Car Park Psychology.

[Thin White Duke]

What things do you see other people doing and what things do you on a car park that are perhaps strange?

I for instance no matter what car I'm in always try to find a place as far from the entrance to a supermarket as possible. This has the benefits of being able to get in/out usually without squeezing inbetween other cars and hopefully no one will park next to me.

The latter of those points is a sore one. I often park my car in a row with say a dozen or more spaces spare all round, only to find someone has parked right next to me by the time I return. Do drivers seem to gravitate towards other parked cars?

One thing I saw the other night were drivers parking inbetween two parked cars and then struggling to get out when there were many bays empty elsewhere (some actually nearer the entrance of the supermarket).

It beggars belief.

[Thin White Duke]

MarkRSi said:

A lot of problems could be avoided if they used spacing like this - I've only ever seen the local Costco do this.





Or perhaps not.

There was an article in the Sunday Times In Gear section a couple of months ago talking about the width of standard bays.

I've found this link to another article about the issue: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103592/Ho...

The average car is now 2 inches wider than the Transport Departments minimum bay width which was last set in 1994.

Some councils/car park owners are making their bays wider at the cost of reducing the number of bays.

The car park in the quoted pics is what all car parks should be like in my opinion.

[Thin White Duke]

jimmy156 said:

I really don't get this ridiculous over exaggeration about damage in car parks. I have been driving for over 7 years and have never noticed damage on my car from doors, trolleys or anything else! Not once.

Yes i tend to be a little more careful where i park, but have many many times parked in crowded tesco/ikea/halfords etc car parks without a single problem.

Perhaps you've been lucky just like some people who smoke 20 a day and live to their 90's.

[Thin White Duke]

tyranical said:

In the words of my mother:

"When you were a child we didn't have parent and child spaces and I managed just fine"

The same for me when I was a kid. Walking across a car park never did me any harm.

[Thin White Duke]

Stoatman said:

Im going to show the Mrs this thread, she sighs every time I drive to the far end of the car park , not even giving the spaces near the store a second look. Maybe i'm a worrier but I hate multi story car parks too , been known to drive to the very top/bottom to get an almost empty floor. Im guessing on here though that's not to weird.

Sounds very normal and logical to me.

I was at my local Sainsburys the other evening and saw someone park right inbetween two other cars. Despite the fact that half of the car park was empty and he could actually have parked in an easier/safer spot nearer to the store!

[Thin White Duke]

deltashad said:

I hate people who deliberately use two spaces, especially when then car park is full. It makes me want to squeeze my car in as tight as possible just to piss them off.

I entered a large tesco car park in Glasgow before the opening time, the staff had used all the good spaces near the door. Now that's not playing fair.

If a car park has plenty of spaces remaining and it's an off peak time then I don't see a problem with someone using two spaces.

The second (and last) time I went to the supermarket in my Firebird a couple of months ago I parked in the second bay from the left in a row of about 10 empty spaces. I did not believe that anyone would park in the bay to my left (which is of course my drivers side in this car).

When I returned a girl had parked her Micra in that very bay! As I was loading my shopping into the boot she returned and I had a polite and humorous discussion with her about it. She said it was her favourite parking bay and hadn't realised mine was LHD. Now surely a car such as a Firebird would attract some interest even from a non petrol head enough for them to look and see that it is LHD and has long doors which may be difficult to open in a tight space.

[Thin White Duke]

Good post Brewster, it's good to see some measured debate return after the slanging matches that took over the topic.

[Thin White Duke]

VinceFox said:

Perhaps she thought you were burt reynolds.

Nah, I don't sport a tache.

[Thin White Duke]

martin84 said:

I don't even think spaces are the same size as they were years ago, I think they're smaller. A social club near where I live has a reasonably big car park (maybe 40 spaces) which was built in the mid 1980's and they haven't even repainted the spaces since, from what I can tell. The spaces there are of a perfectly reasonable size even for the large vehicles of today.

The only newly built place I've been to lately which has notably reasonably sized spaces was a newly built Lidl, believe it or not. Their standard spaces are certainly wider than Sainsbury's, I can almost open the door fully.

Indeed Lidl spaces are wider than Sainsburys. The Morrisons in the next town also has wide spaces which I don't believe have been altered in the past 10 years at least.

[Thin White Duke]

How can I easily place my items in the boot if I have reversed into a bay which is either

A) With the rear of the car now up against a wall

or

B) Up against another car behind.

I do realise that driving out of bay is easier and safer (the same applies to driveways) but it makes for an inconvenient shopping experience.

[Thin White Duke]

GoneAnon said:

Our kids are 21 and 24 so grew up before P&C spaces were widely available (or maybe hadn't even been invented?)

We seem to have coped with getting them in and out of their cots/child-seats/booster-seats without dislocating our backs, damaging our own or another car, or losing a child to a manic car-park racer.

To avoid getting stressed by the waste of space P&C parking spaces, I am now going to thank the stores for providing these spaces - at a safe distance from the rest of us - for the mortally obese to unload their offspring without backing their oversized arse into my car!

The kind of able-bodied person who thinks it is OK to use a disabled space does annoy me, though I have also noticed a certain exuberance about the sheer number of dedicated spaces, and also resent the fact that the temporarily disabled have no right to use these even when their mobility is significantly impaired compared to many blue-badge holders. When I broke my ankle and couldn't walk for a couple of months, I used to gaze longingly at the easy spaces by the door as I levered my way slowly across the carpark on crutches. Of course, I couldn't carry very much back out with me...

It was said further up the thread that not all disabilities are visible, but surely blue-badges should be for people with mobility disabilities, rather than given to people who have some of the mental conditions that seem to qualify, or who have children with ADHD or hyperactivity (or whatever it is they are calling badly-behaved children this year)

An iteresting point about being temporarily disabled. Surely common sense prevails and no one would question you parking in a disabled spot on those grounds.

[Thin White Duke]

icetea said:

It would be great if there was a way for doctors to give out temporary disabled badges. But I would restrict it heavily to avoid the inevitable abuse... i.e. only giving it for clear cut cases like a broken ankle or leg.

Good idea. Is it not time that only people with mobility problems should get a blue badge?

[Thin White Duke]

CAPP0 said:

This is a very old picture, taken on a cheap mobile phone years ago, so apologies for the quality and for the fact that I may have posted this before.

However, I guarantee you that this picture is in no way altered, photoshopped or re-touched, and there's no "angle" to it, ie the rest of the car park really is as empty as all that you can see.

This was an emergency run to a Toys R Us store late one evening to buy a present for a relative's child. My car is the Fiat and I parked away from the store in order to not be close to any other cars and risk any damage. I was only in the shop for 5-10 minutes, and the Micra was nowhere to be seen when I parked my car:



The same sort of thing has happened to me elsewhere since, I completely and utterly fail to understand it, to this day.

It's much the same situation that I described a page or two ago. It was a Micra in my incident. Hmm.