If someone has parked particularly egregiously, I’ll scrawl “I CAN’T PARK!” with my finger in the dust on their door/hatch.
Why? I suppose I’m just trying to embarrass the driver into parking with a little more consideration. I also like the idea of other people seeing this car at their next destination with this warning already labeling the car.
I’ve also scrawled the offenders licence plate number on the back of my car if I end up parked especially close (like Leaffan).
I have left notes twice. Usually I get annoyed but then continue on with my day, but both times I did leave notes, it was to the point that I had to crawl through my passenger door to get to the drivers side. In both cases, I was there first (properly parked) and they pull in next to me WAY too close.
Both notes were generally nice. Something to the effect of “Please watch where you’re parking next time, I couldn’t get in to my door.”
Oh, wait, one other time some guy TOTALLY blocked me in, to the point that I could not get out until the person in front of me moved so I could pull through (I only had to wait about 10 minutes, luckily). I didn’t have paper but wrote in the dust on the window “Nice parking job, asshole”. That was totally warranted - he was so crooked that the tail end of his truck blocked the back of my small car so I couldn’t back up!
You are not doing to badly at only five notes in five years. Still, you should have acted on the message before now. I can imagine people that would like to key your ride or slash the tires. People actually do those things.
I will sometimes leave a note on the windshield of a car for sale. People may think I’m leaving a note as an interested potential buyer. In fact, on these occasions I point out how over priced their vehicle is for the value. I never receive any feedback of course so it’s similar to kids throwing bottles on the street. They never get to see the flat tire they cause and I never see the owner’s reaction.
Park carefully and defensively.
The last place I lived, the only place to park was on the street – and only one side of it at that. Naturally, there was a certain amount of competition for spaces. Since I work from home, I was rarely competing with the 9 to 5 crowd, and could usually park opposite my house, but occasionally that wasn’t possible.
One morning, when I’d had to park a little further down the street the evening before, I found a card on my windscreen. It was a printed card with a picture of a clown, and a message something like “Only a clown parks as badly as that”. So I checked, and I couldn’t for the life of me see anything wrong with the way I’d parked: both tyres were about six inches from the kerb, I wasn’t too close to the car in front or behind – where was the problem? I could only assume that I’d taken someone’s favoured spot. Well, tough. There aren’t any designated parking spaces on that street, it’s first come, first served, and I live there too. So instead of moving the car opposite my own house at the first opportunity, as I might have done otherwise, I left it where it was. And as it turned out, I didn’t need the car again for a couple of days, so there it stayed.
It was only a few days after that that I realised that there was some renovation work going on in the property I’d parked in front of, and it was obviously a lot easier for them if they had that space for moving materials in and out etc. If they’d left a friendly note pointing that out, I’d have gladly moved the car out of their way – as it was, they had to work around me.
We had a hilarious incident at the San Diego Wild Animal Park recently.
We went fairly late in the morning on a beautiful day. The parking lot was a zoo.
My husband found a parking place close to the entrance, it hadn’t been taken, because the car on the right had parked so they were touching the line, leaving a very small parking space.
My husband told me and our passenger to get of our Jetta, then he packed into the parking spot. He had no problem getting out on his side, but it was a tight fit on the passenger side of the poorly parked car.
When we got back to the car, the driver/passenger of the poorly parked car on the right had written “asshole” on our passenger window in lipstick.
It was infuriating - they WERE the parking issue. There was PLENTY of room for that driver to get in the car (because they were parked over on our side). All they had to do was pull out of the space and the passenger could get in the car.
Assholes.
You should have seen that coming, to be honest.
God, people suck at parking. And really, even if you lack the mental capacity to park within the lines in the first place, for Christ’s sake, take five seconds to back your POS rustbucket Honda Civic up and fix it.
I share the annoyance of most of the folks upthread. My personal peeve, though is people that park across a sidewalk. Really rude. Illegal here, but the police don’t seem to ever ticket them. I always wonder if their thought is, people should walk in the street, thus leaving the sidewalks free to park on. But I don’t believe these folks think much at all. I’d never left a note, but sometimes I leave handprints on their windows. Petty, I know, but it doesn’t hurt their car.
This is pretty funny… years ago when I was one of Chicago’s finest… i answered a call of an irate dude. What the gist was was that in CHI people dig out their spaces in the snowy winter… and sometimes they leave a chair to denote that this particular space is theirs. So this guy parks in some spot that i assume the homeowner had spent time digging out. When the good man returned to his sled… he found that “someone” had turned on the hose and froze his car over. That… that was some funny shit. We couldn’t get anyone to answer their door much less fess up to what had happened. Ending up calling out a wrecker for the guy…
Too bad this was in the days before the cellphone camera!!!!The classic “shitpig express” epistle.
I’ve left a note once; it was Christmas time, freezing cold (about 20 degrees, which is rare enough here to warrant mentioning) and drizzling and some jackass had double-parked his “pwecious big twuck” right in front of the apartment building, which is prime parking space…especially in bad weather.
I ended up having to park on the dark side of the moon. Even if that extra space didn’t go to me, it should’ve gone to some other freezing cold person. Not this jackass’s truck.
So I left him a note, more sarcastic than angry, saying “thanks so much for taking an extra parking space on one of the coldest nights this whole year. Maybe Santa will leave you some manners under the tree. MERRY FREAKIN’ CHRISTMAS!”
In a statistically rare coincidence, the owner of said truck came outside as I was leaving the note. I stalked past him and told him to learn how to park.
FTR he didn’t say a single word. Just picked up the note and read it. He was still standing there when I went inside my apartment.
By window do you mean paintwork?
Then yes.
If I happen upon a spectacularly selfishly parked vehicle, yes, I do take the time to scribble a note about it. It’s preferable to leave a nasty note than to stab my knife into the side of one or all of the tires. I’ve been extremely tempted to do damage to the tires or paint of a vehicle. Very tempted indeed.
Only if it’s blocking the driveway. I also contact the police/parking officers to get them to issue a fine notice.
I did once. I was at WalMart and was parked in the center of a spot. When I came back out, someone had parked partially in my spot, on the driver’s side, leaving me just enough room to BARELY squeeze in the door. The worst part? It was raining, and I had a cart load of groceries and such, and no room to get the cart up beside the van for easy loading. I was drenched by the time I had finished, so I wrote a nice thank you note for their excellence in parking, then tucked it into one of the ziplock bags I had just bought (didn’t want the ink to run, you know…) and popped it under their windshield wiper.
Assholes.
I read some of these threads about driving and parking and am tempted to write a long report about driving in rural Thailand. A bad parking job there is one which completely prevents another from moving his car; these are not uncommon.
I once parked about noon at my car dealer’s and, since the errand didn’t involve my car, parked in the dirt next to the street as a courtesy rather than using up their limited customer parking. Shortly later I wanted to leave but it was impossible: someone had pulled in behind; there’d have been no room to manouevre even if the other neighboring cars had been entreated to move. Parking was scarce on the street, but there were problem-free places had the driver been willing to walk a few extra yards.
This happens all the time in rural Thailand, and is little problem: One tracks down the driver, asks them politely to move; they’re happy to move their car (with a smile); one could argue it’s a happy easy-going life and this gives opportunity to meet strangers.
In the one case I’m posting about, however, the driver had gone with someone else to a different city, taking his car-key with him! The car-dealer manager called him, and the driver came back (I don’t know if they had to curtail their errand for me). In their defense, they must have thought I was an employee based on where I parked, but even an employee might have had a sudden emergency requiring his car.
My total delay was much more than 20 minutes, let alone 20 seconds.
This story was about a parked car. If I tell stories about moving cars in rural Thailand, I’ll definitely have to post in BBQ Pit.
I have a few handwritten notes that say “Sorry I dinged your car, but you were parked over the line. Security thinks I’m writing down my insurance info, but I’m not” and leave them in windshields of double parkers who don’t want Precious to get too close to the beaters.
A number of times, mostly to asshats who ding my door trying to get their fat ass out of their car.
Once I put a note on a H2 Hummer who took up 4 parking spaces because he parked diagonally.
I forgot what I wrote, something like: Compensate much?
I was having a bad day. 
interesting only one other person has ever recieved a note … crap I guess I am just a bad parker/inconsiderate … This might sound bazaar but I think I’m going to start paying a lot more attention to it.
I don’t leave notes, polite or not, but I may call the cops and have you ticketed or (if its a place outside normal jurisdiction) wait around and see you for myself. If it looks like you are going to pop into instant confrontation, are drunk, impaired in some other fashion, or rushing I’ll just lurk along the sidewalk but if you seem of average intelligence I may ask you if you considered what you did. Normal mall-type parking and I probably will ignore you unless it involves a handicapped space; at that point I will take notice.