Dodger Stadium. The general admission lot had no row numbering or anything, just a giant sea of thousands of cars. The first and only time I ever had to use the panic button on my key fob, which would have been even more effective if numerous others hadn’t had the same idea. The lack of organization was a general theme, as traffic was so poorly directed that it took an hour to go approximately 800 feet to the exit. Never again.
I take photos of my car in airport lots, or a photo of a neaby sign or landmarks. Has helped at BWI and LAX.
After spending a full day at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum, we went to get the car from the indoor parking garage. It was gone. My kids were scared, I was pissed off and tired.
Before calling the cops, I walked up a level and down a level. Apparently a ne’er-do-well moved my vehicle down exactly one level just to mess with me.
About three years ago, in a shopping mall, and around this time of year too. I was unable to snag my ‘normal’ parking area so had to find an alternative spot on the same level but a long way away. Being Xmas, being a shopping mall, being stressed by the former, I returned to where I thought I’d parked, but no car to be found.
After wandering around for an hour getting increasingly despairing, I accosted one of the security blokes and started bawling my eyes out that my car had been nicked. Then rang my daughter to come and pick me up, still howling.
And upon driving through the maze to retrieve me, she passed my car, still where I’d parked it and definitely not stolen.
I had parked on some small town side street and forgot to look around, then I went walking around for a couple of hours. Later I went looking for my car and was completely lost. Took about an hour to find my car by walking all the way back to where I knew I had driven into town and retracing my steps.
Probably worse with a motorcycle because there are literally 100,000 motorcycles at that rally and only a few colors.
Haven’t lost mine but I found somebody else’s once.
Parked in one of those trendy “lifestyle centers” that are small retail areas gussied up to look like an old time small town downtown. This place was about 3 short blocks by 2 with a 3-4 retail storefronts on each side of each block.
We wandered around a bit, sport-shopped, ate some lunch, came back to the same block and walked up to my car. Pushed the fob button and nothing happened. After a couple more tries put the key in the door lock and turned. Not gonna turn. I backed away from the car out into the street. And noticed this car has the wrong license plate. Hmmm. Next to it was a jacked up F-250 pickup. Just past that monstrosity was my identical car. With the right license plate. And which had silently unlocked itself (no beeps or flashes) when I’d first fobbed it 5 minutes ago. :smack:
In the courseof our wanderings we’d circled the block and come right back to *almost *where I had parked. Approaching from the direction I did mine was hidden behind the big truck that wasn’t there when I’d parked. At least the other owner didn’t see me fiddling with his car; that might have been awkward.
One of my tricks for rental cars is to pick one with out-of-state plates. If you’re renting in Dallas, get one with non-TX plates. In LA, get non-CA plates. etc. There’s almost always one or two from out of state sitting there on the lot. I always do the advance arrangement where you just show up, grab any one from the appropriate rental category, then check out.
It’s hard to remember “Non-descript white/tan/silver Toyota/Hyundai/Chrysler/Chevy”. It’s easy to remember “Washington plates” when you’re in New Jersey. Good bet it’s the only one around.
It sucked. I was living in a halfway house and had about two months sober. My car broke down and I borrowed my parents extra car*, a 1985 Mustang.
I got off work and went to meet some friends downtown. I was pretty nervous, first time really going out somewhere with a heavy emphasis on booze.
We had a good time, no desire to drink. Yay. Time to leave and I went to the parking lot where I thought I left the car and it isn’t there. Oh shit.
Lots of walking through garages in downtown Vegas, couldn’t find it. After a couple hours I gave up and took a cab back to the halfway house.
The next day I had to call Dad and explain that I lost the car but I really, really did not drink.
He picked me up, we went down and found it after about 30 minutes. Of course, it was on the exact opposite side from where I thought I left it.
That was twelve years ago and I still get shit for it
Slee
*Amazing what two months of sobriety can change. Two months earlier, before I got sober, there wasn’t a chance in hell that anyone would have let me borrow a car. And I am still sober 12 years later.
There are plenty of apps for that. Most are OKish.
Since they’re so trivial they’re hard to monetize. So you get a thousand quickies created by $1/day furriners. Rather than a couple of good ones with strong features.
It’s also the case that GPS precision is highly variable. The Google Maps app on my Android shows a tinted circle around your position to indicate its uncertainty. IOW, you’re 99% likely to be *someplace *in that circle. But not necessarily, or even most likely, at the center of it. All you can honestly learn from that circle is that you’re probably in there somewhere.
Wandering around downtown Manhattan in NYC yesterday the circle was generally about 6 blocks in diameter. And often centered 2 blocks from where the street signs said I was. That’s not much help finding your car. Precision in parking structures (“parking decks” in some benighted dialects) is likewise trash.
Even the most magic app can’t produce a good result from a crap GPS fix. Which also depends on the quality of the GPS receiver & software built into your personal device. Some are pretty good; others are teh suxxor.
