Huh? How is stopping at a red light at 3 am, seeing no traffic for blocks, and going, unsafe? Illegal yes. But no cops, no enforcement and people here seem okay with not following the rules if they won’t be be enforced, so long as we don’t think the rule makes much sense.
You do not need to involve the police to tow a car off of your private property, not sure why you think you would. And the fee would have to paid by the owner of the car. Signs like this and this are legit and are able to be followed through on without any ticket being issued. “Patient only” “customer only” too. No laws broken but enforcable by the property owner.
I had one of those. 5-speed manual. Got 42 mpg, even with the AC on. I miss that car.
Around here, they say “Expectant mothers, and parents with babies and toddlers.” Albeit, I found that when I had a baby in a car seat, the best space was right next to the cart corral. But wow, when you are battling the 8-month backache, those spots are great. There were times shortly before my son was born that I seriously thought about riding in those electric carts.
Meh. Hypothetical driveway is wide and long enough that you can maneuver around. (S)he is inconveniencing you, maybe … and maybe not. But no trapping is involving. You don’t have room to offer a spot to the guest you had invited over though (although they were not sure they were going be able to make it) …
Do you have a right to decide who parks on your property? And if you give permission can you then not restrict where they can and where they cannot park?
If I need to have guests park in a particular part of my driveway, I’d tell them that personally. I wouldn’t just put up a sign telling them they aren’t worthy to have the good spot. That would be rude. Who does that? (Nobody, that’s who. That’s why your analogy fails.)
What I don’t get here is the sense of entitlement. A lot of people feel free to go against the property owners wishes (and in some cases, apparently take glee in it) because…it’s a good spot? And they feel like they have a right to it? Really?
So, let me ask you this…You pull into a store, in the right near the door you pull into a spot, as you pull in you see a sign that says “Parking for _____ customers only”. You forgot that sign was there, but you do remember, upon thinking about it, that that spot is nearly always empty. Let’s further say, you know that if you park there you won’t be challenged in any way, shape or form and more than likely no one will even notice you parked there. Do you park there or do you back out and take the spot at the back of the lot?
For me, it’s not that I feel like I have a ‘right’ to park there, it’s that as someone who runs a business, I feel it’s very important to make it as easy as possible to get people to spend their money. Putting up stupid signs that make me have to park farther away isn’t going to do it.
I mentioned in another thread that there’s a bar I won’t go to anymore because the owners (3 of them) park in front of the bar leaving the customers to park far away. The last time I was there, I had to walk three blocks. How about the owners park their cars down the block so customers can park right in front of the doors. To add insult to injury, we had to wait 20 minutes to get a seat at the bar and when we finally did, the three owners were sitting at the bar…how about they get up and move around so more people can sit.
And it’s not that I’m ‘taking glee in it’, I certainly don’t go looking for these spots, if there’s another spot that’s reasonably close, I’ll take that one first. The only time I’ll use one of these spots is if not using it means parking at the back of the lot (or saying ‘fuckit, they’re too crowded’), or something like that, there’s some middle ground.
Also, just to reiterate, these aren’t pregnant mother signs or handicapped signs, these are signs for people that are picking up an order they faxed into Chipotle (when that’s literally the only spot open), or signs for the Employee Of The Month or one of the 4 Contractor signs at Home Depot.
With the exception of genuine-need spots*, I park my big truck wherever I damned well please, although that might be at the competitor;s lot across town in this case.
I’ve stated before on this board (and been pilloried for it) that I’ll respect special snowflake spots when they keep the snowflakes out of mine. If you want special narrow spots reserved for small cars then they park *only *there. Keep them out of mine (the larger ones). Ditto for high-mileage, etc.
To be honest, I usually park further out no matter what, in order to leave the store-side spots for the elderly, folks herding children, what have you. My truck is fairly large and I don’t like forcing people to duck or maneuver around the mirrors to get to the sidewalk.
*handicapped, loading areas, or something unusual like electrical hookups.
And because Pullin’ is going to catch some slack for saying this because he has a big truck and that means he’s narcissistic and has as small dick and whatever else the Straight Dope has to say about people that drive big trucks…regarding my post then…I’ve been parking that way with all my small cars (including a Hybrid Honda Insight).
But if these signs were removed those spots would be already taken by others and you would have to park further away anyway. By adding these signs you are only push a few car slots back, you are not pushed from premium spots to parking in the back by these signs.
In other words the only reason you get to park in these premium spots at all is because other people are respecting the owner’s stated intention and leaving them intentional open. Without those signs you wouldn’t be able to park there anyway as other people would have gotten there before you and taken them.
(Yes I know you may get lucky with someone pulling out at the time you are looking)
Ah. So your problem is not that the owner is saying that only certain cars are allowed to park on certain parts of his property but that the owner is so rude as to not stand there and tell that to each and every driver personally. Glad we cleared that up!
Then perhaps you accept that the way a business property owner with thousands of guests each day notifies guests of where they are and are not allowed to park on the owner’s property is by way of a sign, while you, with a few guests, would tell people, and that that difference is of no signficance to the issue of whether or not a property owner (be it of a home or a business) should be able to tell guests where on his/her property they may park, if at all.
Now as a guest at a friend’s house I may think it is rude of him to not want a truck in his driveway. But if he asks for it to not be parked there it should be honored. If I drive one and am insulted I can choose to not visit him. But to park my hypothetical truck on his driveway over his expressed objections would be wrong.
You don’t like that the store owner wants to give preferential treatment to those who fax in orders, to customers who spend more money, or any other group that is not a protected class, then don’t shop there. But taking advantage of spaces that are only open because the majority of other customers do follow the rules as set by the property owner is pretty much exactly the same as parking a truck on a friend’s driveway when explicitly asked to not do that (whether it is because he is saving the spot for a girlfriend, a grandmother, or just because that fugugly truck on his driveway would embarrass him). Could be that he hates plug-ins and doesn’t want a plug-in on his driveway. Same choices open to me and parking where the property owner tells me not to is not one of them.
If a single person puts up a sign like that on his driveway, I’d attribute that to him just being an asshole. If a corporation has signs in their parking lot, I’d attribute that to corporate bureaucracy, probably appeasing some group or other, and not to some high-placed individual just being an asshole. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. So the personal driveway versus corporate parking lot for the public is a bad analogy. The motivations are different.
For the large parking lot, the company’s choice is either I park there anyway, or I go to a competitor’s store and shop there instead. It’s not a choice between parking in that space or some other one in the same lot. I believe the store would rather I parked in the space and shopped there instead of leaving it open and shopping at a competitor. If you think the company would rather you shopped elsewhere and left their special space open, that’s your prerogative, and you can make your parking decisions appropriately.
What I would do for the person with that sign in his driveway is irrelevant to this OP.
Without a clear definition of ‘energy-efficient’ I’d park there. My Accord gets ~28 mpg and unless they’ve specified that your vehicle has to get better mileage than that, I’d conclude that that was good enough.
But I think the idea is pretty stupid, with or without a clear definition. Save the close-in spaces for people of limited mobility , and first come, first serve for everything else.
