I voted “Other”,
I park WAY out where no one else is parked and I do this for several reasons:
Door-dings make me CRAZY!, if I ding my car it’s no big deal but if you ding my car I want to chop off your head (you apparently are not using it) and nail your dog to a fence (if you want to damage my car, buy it from me first).
Out in the back 40 “Situational Awareness” is GREATLY enhanced, there are far less places for the Bad Guys and the Zombies to hide.
It makes life easier for the rest of the world that can’t (or won’t) walk the extra 50 yards (and we wonder why we have an Obesity problem in the U.S.).
Because of work I’m a “Forward First” Parker and if I’m out in the “back 40” I can “pull through” a spot.
Unclviny (Male)
Male, and answered “first available spot.” I’ll qualify that with, closest first available spot I see available. That is, I don’t park at the very end of the aisle if I see something closer. But I never, ever, drive around like and idiot looking for the perfect spot. I love when I get in and out and see that same stupid person still looking for a spot!
I park as close as possible to the big sign that says “Row 5”, on the right side of the lot, preferably facing out so I don’t have to back up. Why there? Just force of habit… If I park on the opposite (left) side of the lot, it’s just about impossible to leave through the main entrance/exit because of the traffic coming in off the main road.
(and this has nothing to do with parking, but is there any more chilling experience than hearing over the loudspeaker in a store, "will the owner of a (fill in description of your car/license plate here) please come to the service desk?)
I drive a big truck, so I park in the boonies. Both to protect me from dings, but also to hope for the chances of being able to easily pull into a spot, and then later on, not be blocked in by someone else. Also, the truck is longer than most spots around here, so I’m hoping to find a pull-through sort of spot so my tailgate’s not blocking the lane.
More and more lots around here are being re-striped with Mini Coopers as the size reference for a full-size spot, and there then a lot of even smaller spots labeled “COMPACT” that are missing a few feet of length to accommodate trees and bushes.
I just grab a spot, whatever is available. It usually takes less time to walk to the store from the far end of the lot than it does to circle to find a “good” space.
If it’s pouring or something, I might circle to get a close space, but I don’t hover unless there are literally no other spaces available, like if I were crazy enough to go to the mall on December 23rd.
Here in Florida the coveted spots are usually the ones with shade so that your car is not an inferno when you come back to it, not the ones closest to the door.
I chose other. I park as far away from the crowds as I can no matter the weather. I hate door dings/scratches from carts/fingerprints/etc. on my car. Also, my car is small and I park it alone so when I come out I can find it easily among all the SUVs and pickups.
The only time I’ll take a closer spot is when I can get the very first spot and hug the line away from the car next to me. I like a big buffer so a door won’t hit me. Sometimes this backfires because some large vehicles will actually go over the lines if you leave any space at all. And there are some idiots who will pull up and park for “just a few minutes” in the yellow hashed no parking area next to the first spot.
It is weird, though. I’ll park in the back of a lot and be the only car for 40 spaces but when I come out there will be a huge SUV right next to me. I don’t get it. This happens all the time! There will be no cars anywhere around me but they choose the spot right next to me?
I park in the nearest “safe” spot to the door. This is usually pretty far away, out in the empty part of the lot where no one else is parking, but sometimes I luck out and find a spot at the end of a row near the door. Then I pull in as far as possible from the car next to me on the one side, but still in the space.
ETA: It looks like Boscibo and I have the same MO.
Of the strategies described, the one that comes closest is “I grab the first available spot and walk” (and by the way, I’m female), but there’s a bit of a twist.
Most parking lots in Spain have a sort of “divider street,” they’re like a figure-eight with cars circulating on both the outside and that divider, all of which are relatively wide, whereas the spaces in between are parking spaces and narrower “streets.” IME, if I park on the far side of the divider I’m a lot less likely to come back to find my poor Yaris sandwiched between two cars (one of which inevitably parks as if its driver expects other people to be paper-thin) than if I do it on the near side, so I park on the far side. Sometimes the far side is less than a quarter empty, with the near side full and clogged: cars circling around as if parking those three meters closer would save them twice as much as they’re spending in gas just slowly plodding around.
There’s been times I haven’t been able to get into my car until the idjit on my left came back with his own shopping and moved out. I hate that.
I look for an end spot. Sometimes end spots are next to islands; sometimes they are far away at the very end of the lot/grid. If the whole lot is a mess, like my YMCA is, I just park at the far end spot and jog.
I never circle and don’t care about being close. I pass by any spot between two other cars.
Other: Well, how do I say this? I have owned a series of utterly nondescript cars.
When parking my nondescript car in a large lot, I look for some distinctive feature of the parking lot–this is harder than it sounds, in most parking lots, but let’s say they have a sculpture, or something–and park as close as I can get to that.
This way I may be able to find my car when I come out.
Years ago my son went through a lazy period. I would intentionally park far away from wherever we were going just to mess with him. The more he complained, the further away I would park. He grew out of his foolishness, I didn’t.
I don’t get this either, but I suspect it is the same mentality that ensures that when you go to see a movie in an empty theatre, the next people coming in will sit right beside you. We didn’t invent the word “sheeple” for nothing.
I live in Santa Barbara, and especially at the college, parking is such a pain in the ass that I grab the first available spot I can. If I circled around trying to find something closer chances are that the first spot will be taken and then I’m SOL.
I park in the middle of as many empty parking spaces as possible. That means it’s usually the farthest away from the door.
My reasoning is that I want to be able to go back to my car with as few obstructions as possible. And I don’t like door dings. But I live in a place where there’s always someone parked next to me when I get out of the building, regardless of where I park, even if there are 5 spaces on either side of me and 10 behind me, so perhaps I should just abandon my reasoning at some point. :smack: