I can see how they ended up taking 2 cars. The Op kind of explains that.
What’s the big deal? You never met your S.O. somewhere?
But I am sick of people getting weirded out over parking. This includes my own lovely wife. I usually park rather far away from the entrance of stores, away from other cars & such because I don’t my car getting dinged up from opening car doors and shopping carts. When I hear grunts about the distance I get pretty pissy and snap “What? Don’t your f*#king legs work? The walk will do us good!”. It annoys me how people will walk around a store or mall 15 times looking at the same crap, but don’t want to walk 500 lousy feet to get to their car. Ridiculous!
I hesitate to join what is rapidly becoming a pile-on, but I have to say that I clearly side with the guy in the SUV. Even if there had been no other free spots (and the OP clearly indicated that it was just a question of getting a closer spot) it would still have been unacceptable behaviour.
Having, said that, though, the implication that he had the right to use violence to defend what he did strikes me as being just as ridiculous. For the love of all that is holy, it’s just a parking space. I might raise my eyebrows at someone saving a space, and I might politely point out that that’s not how things work, and I might even use a few choice epithets if it had been a long day, but
Elendil’s Heir, how did your wife feel about what you did?
Your question almost sounds like a response to your wife not approving of what you did and your looking for support for your action. I have been wrong on similar things and had to apologize to my wife and change my habits.
One time, I was driving (and driving) around the Yupper West Side searching for a spot and found one–and there was a college kid standing in the spot (the open spot happened to be right of my dormitory freshman year).
"Me: “What are you doing?”
College Kid: “Saving this spot for my friend.”
Me: “No, you’re about to get run over, is what you’re doing. You can’t save a parking space, unless you’re a car.”
CK: “Yes, I can. My friend will be right here. Go away.”
Me: “Here I come.” (Revs up engine)
CK: “This is my friend’s spot!”
Me: (drives into spot, gets out) “You know, kid, if you would have asked me, as a kindness to please allow you to save the spot for your friend, you might have had a chance, but telling me that it was your friend’s spot like that? You’re lucky I didnt run you over then and there just for the pleasure of it.”
When I returned, a few hours later, my windshield had been thoroughly sputumed. Looked like at least a two-Kid job of sputuming. But sometimes a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.
I think you people are taking parking spots a bit too seriously. I think a pedestrian holding a spot for two to three minutes is fine, but of course sitting there for half an hour is unreasonable.
Okay, so here’s a little ethics question for all of you that advocated running poor little Elindil over with the SUV: given that parking spots are a free community resource, do you feel guilt over the amount of time that you spend parked in a spot? Do you walk briskly and purposefully through the mall so as to shave five minutes off of your six hour shopping trip to pare your parking spot usage down to the bare minimum? Why not? And if you don’t, what exactly is so horrifying about someone taking up a spot for two minutes so that a friend can park there to ease the logistics of meeting up later?
What really pisses me off is “valet” parking where the valets use cones to save off half the freakin’ lot for their use so that they only have to jog five feet to get cars. Triply so when they put cones on the street in public parking spots instead of a private lot. That’s not the purpose or job of being a valet. The idea is that you still optimize the space of the lot by getting the same parking priority as others, but valets bust-ass or intelligently arrange to park and pick up cars so that they can still pick up and deliver vehicles efficiently.
Jesus Christ, you’re a madman. The fact that you’re willing to threaten someone with a lethal weapon for a fucking parking spot speaks volumes more about yourself than the young man guarding the spot, even if he was being an asshole. If he was a cop, you would have gotten thirty rounds through your windshield.
No wonder people get shot over road rage incidents.
Why is it fine? As I said earlier, there is a convention in place in parking lots to make them run smoothly, and a major element of that convention is that spots are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Holding a spot messes up that convention, makes things run less smoothly, and introduces conflict as to how the spot should be allocated. It is unethical to violate this convention for no reason except personal gain.
That guy in the SUV may have been driving around for five minutes already looking for a spot. He had waited his turn, politely allowing the old lady to take as long as she needed to take to get out of the spot. When Elendil swooped in to take the spot, he was screwing the SUV guy over.
Sure, the folks talking about shooting someone are being silly–but I take that as just the normal Internet Machismo, not as anything serious. It’s sort of the equivalent of your talking about how prr could’ve gotten shot for his action.
Its no my intention to argue my point but merely to present a different point of view.
You were there first. Since when do vehicles have more of a right than human beings? Perhaps next time the OP should bring along his kid’s little toy truck and park it in the stall betwen his feet
Gonna go out on a limb, not knowing the poster… but I think that’s a bit of a whoosh.
No, it’s not. Pedestrians don’t get to reserve spaces for motor vehicles! You want a space saved, you get another vehicle. Now I’m imagining how ridiculous this would be. Can you see some putz on a bike, or a moped, waving people on? “Dude, I’m holding this spot!”
Not if I’m shopping or otherwise attending to business.
I’ve never spent six hours in a mall, but yes, as a matter of fact, I do move quickly to my spot so someone else can have it. In fact, if I’m up the aisle, I’ll usually wave to a driver that I’m parked a few cars up and leaving.
Well, now with cell phones and all, that’s something that can be easily remedied. If the spot’s being held by another car for two minutes, we’re not really going to know that, are we? If you exhibit this toolish behavior of standing in a spot, you’re a schmuck.
Here’s an idea, which I’ve employed before. My school is in an area with meter parking. Obviously, we’d all like to park close by but it usually isn’t possible. If I’m meeting someone and we’re leaving at the same time, I don’t worry about parking close, because if I take the long walk to campus from my spot - my friend who has parked closer can just drive me to my spot!
The OP appeared to be committing one of my least favorite faux pas(es?). Treating public places like they’re private. You’re certainly entitled to place your convenience over that of others on your private property, but what if SUV guy has been driving around for half an hour looking for a spot? It doesn’t fucking matter why he wants the spot, it matters that he was there first with his car. Now if the OP explained the situation to SUV guy and asked if it was okay, I think that’s a little weird, but I think that’s kosher.
A. You guys are being too harsh. An asshole would not care what the convention is, and an unethical person would not care whether he had done the right thing. But the OP, by posting here, shows that he cares about the convention, and he cares about doing right. So to call him an asshole or to say he is unethical is not appropriate.
B. If the rule is “first come first served” then what the OP did was permissible. So people in this thread who are referencing that rule don’t have it quite right. But I don’t think the rule is “first come first served” but rather “first car come first car served.” I don’t think there is anything that makes this a better rule than “first come first served,” but I do think it is the rule.
