these days with rideshare drivers everywhere, food delivery drivers everywhere, Amazon third party delivery drivers everywhere, and every other possible delivery being delivered everywhere by drivers unfamiliar with neighborhoods who are liable to get lost just about anywhere and stop just about anywhere to try and get their GPS working correctly, the number of strange vehicles sitting by the side of the street has swelled to astronomical proportions. A vehicle parked on the side of a public road in and of itself isn’t suspicious. Somebody getting out of that vehicle to wander up and down the street trying doorknobs? THAT’s suspicious.
Well, it assumes facts not in evidence. 
Besides, your typical Doper would make use of irony in describing that situation, i.e. referring to her as the scrawny dude’s “gracious helpmeet”.
An additional consideration is that calling the police on someone is not always a benign act.
Things like this might happen when one calls the police just because they think a car or person they don’t recognize is automatically suspicious.
This is just such a foreign idea to me, and I want to understand it. In my mind, the guy who is openly sitting in his car in front of my house isn’t a danger. The guy who is driving around slowly, or hiding in the bushes, or parking away from my house and walking up through my back yard is the one I need to worry about. Do you really worry that a person who has been sitting in front of your house for a long time, looking at his phone, not at all worried that you and everyone sees him, is going to be the one that breaks in or tries to cause you harm? I am not a burglar, but if I was, I think I would try to go out of my way not to be seen openly sitting in front of my target’s house.
If one were to phone the police simply because the caller thinks they’re witnessing something suspicious, the caller better be quite certain because in today’s world that can easily backfire on you if it turns out the “suspicious” person is doing nothing wrong.
Please explain how it could backfire.
Every situation is different. All I’m saying is that, if you feel its suspicious, make the call. It doesn’t matter whether or not people on the internet would or would not call the cops. They don’t live in your neighborhood. You know what is out of place where you live and have every right to either go up and ask the driver or call the police.
Yeah this. Knowing nothing else about the case I’d wager a decent amount of money one of these things is what the OP saw.
A vehicle parked on the side of a public road in and of itself isn’t suspicious
Also complete crazy to me that anyone would consider calling the police on someone (or even confronting someone!) for sitting in their car on a public road, whether or not its outside your house.
The police could end up arresting, beating up, or killing an innocent person.
Actually you don’t have that right if someone can interpret you calling the police as some form of harassment which is becoming more prevalent these days. You’d better be pretty darned sure they’re up to no good before you make that call or the caller easily could themselves be in trouble.
As in other threads like this, people are letting their own biases affect their replies.
The entire country is not like where you are. If we were talking NYC or LA or some densely-packed mixed use community, you’d be right. Anybody could have a legitimate reason to stop.
But in places like my neighborhood, a 100% single family homes area, they pretty much don’t. Hardly anyone parks on the street. Everyone knows or is at least aware of everyone that lives here. If you don’t know their name, or even talk to them, you know what they look like, what car(s) they have. You wave to them. You notice if something out of the ordinary happens.
Right now, 11 pm, there are no cars on the street. If there was someone sitting in a car, in front of my house, for any length of time, I’d start to wonder what was up.
It’s not paranoia if something is really wrong. What reason would someone have to sit in their car in front of my house? Especially as there is a church with a large parking lot just around the corner, where anyone could make a call, check their GPS, do paperwork, sleep, hide from their wife, get a BJ, spin donuts, whatever, and no one would even notice.
Being legal to park there has nothing to do with it.
Could also be van life/stealth camping.
It is completely paranoia if you haven’t got a reason why someone sitting in front of your house puts you at risk. It’s frankly the definition. The fact that you lack sufficient information and imagination as to why someone may be sitting there, doesn’t support an inference that the reason is nefarious. If you are so opposed to someone using the public street, there are plenty of gated and rural communities in America where you can be spared from having to see a stranger minding his own business.
Where did I say I was opposed to someone using a public street? I don’t think ANYONE here said that.
Apparently, you don’t really see what everyone is saying. You have this vision in your head, and you’re right and everyone else is “paranoid”. I guess when my neighbor got her car stolen out of her garage, the people that drove by and stole it were just “using the public street” and “minding their own business”?
Unless you think the car just up and drove off by itself?
How do you know I don’t live in a gated community? I don’t, but what if I did? Their “security” is an illusion. And rural? Are you kidding me? Thieves just up and rob rural houses all the time!
Stop trying to be such a contrarian, and listen to what people are saying.
Parking on a public street is using a public street.
This might have some relevance if the person who stole her car had parked in front of her house for a long period of time first, you know the topic being discussed.
In your paranoid way of thinking, parking and robbing are the same, got it.
I am listening to what people are saying. It’s pretty awful.
You’re really trying hard to “win” this one. You call me paranoid, mischaracterize what I said, and then top it off with a “Got it”. When you borrow the hip kids phrases, you should try to use them correctly.
And after I’ve described where I live, yet you can’t come up with a reasonable idea of why someone would be sitting in front of my house for an extended time. Instead, you just call me paranoid, which is skirting insults.
How do you know they weren’t. I mean, if we’re just discussing the topic. I wasn’t staring at the street that day. They knew to get her car during the minute after she opened the garage door and ran inside to get something, But I’m sure they were just “using the street, minding their own business” and driving by at that exact instant. And they were just overwhelmed and had an irresistible impulse to take her car, with their unbridled enthusiasm so strong they damaged the garage wall on the way out. Sure.
Maybe I’m missing the point of people posting in a section called “In my humble opinion”. I was under the impression that it’s a place to post one’s opinion. Wasn’t aware one could “win”. Is there a prize? I have no earthly idea what you are talking about with the hip kid phrases comment. “Got it” is a phrase that has been around for as long as I can remember, but not something I am going to spend time on.
In my opinion, you have failed to show any connection between someone openly parking in front of someone’s house and robbing that house. Absent some connection, the fear is unsupported and so is paranoid. If you disagree, that’s fine, but if you can’t name the connection, that should probably tell you something.
I can think of 100s of reasonable reasons why someone would sit in front of your house. Many have been previously posted. The number 1 reason being: it’s none of your business or mine what someone does in public if they aren’t breaking laws.
You’re using this as an example of why you are not being paranoid to be worried about someone parking. Don’t you think it would be on you to suggest some connection between the two things?
You can’t say this:
and this:
Those are contradictory sentences.
Whether or not you have an issue with it is one thing, but if it happens ‘all the time’ it’s not abnormal.
Calling the cops on someone for what they are doing = opposed to whatever it is that they are doing. At least in my book. I don’t see how such an encounter could have anything other than a negative outcome, even if the person wasn’t doing anything illegal. The cops aren’t going to knock on someone’s car window, say “oh, you’re just having a Big Mac and fries, cary on, so sorry to have disturbed you.”
They’re probably going to ask for license and registration, get into all the details of their story (which McDonalds did you go to, where are you headed, why did you stop here, etc.), maybe ask them to step out of the car, search the car, and after all that, even if they don’t find anything, are still likely to tell the person to “move along.” And that’s the best case scenario.
Hundreds? Sure you can.
Just list one that isn’t phone related, that would cause someone to sit in a car in front of a stranger’s house for more than a few minutes, that they couldn’t do in a public parking lot.
One summer we had a bunch of contract laborers that would park on our street, and ride together to the job site. Their cars would sit all day. And you know what - no one called the cops. Because they were “just using the street, minding their own business”. No one was “paranoid”. But also they weren’t sitting in their cars all day. And I’m sure they sat in their cars for a while until the others showed up. If you can’t see the difference, then you’re not trying, because that’s not what the “paranoid” people are describing.
I listed one upthread. Let’s say a neighbor is having a party, and a group of people all come together in one car. Maybe one of those people is an introvert and get’s tired of socializing. They go back to the car to take a break and sit there and wait for the party to be over. This isn’t a hypothetical. This scenario has taken place in front of my house. I didn’t call the cops on that person.