I’ve just realized “first car come…” is a better rule because it allows for a more orderly method of distributing parking places. Still not a big deal IMO though.
-FRL-
If I were the SUV driver, I would say, “Grr.” And then I’d drive away and forget about it.
If I hadn’t been waiting, I wouldn’t even have done that.
I wouldn’t hold a spot for someone, but I don’t care if others do it. I don’t consider it ethical or unethical. Ethics don’t come into it for me.
Quibble: I didn’t say he was unethical, I said the behavior was unethical. An ethical person can do unethical things; they just, as you point out, care about figuring out the ethics of their actions. And nobody else used the word “unethical.”
Now you’re quibbling :). Parking lots don’t serve pedestrians; Elendil wasn’t served by that space. They serve people driving cars, and he was holding the space so that it could serve his wife. However, the SUV guy came there first to obtain the service of the spot, so he should have received it first.
Daniel
It’s almost impossible for a person to save a parking space by standing there so it’s a little silly to try. If I’m in the car that wants to park, all I have to do is not move and the person they’re saving the space for can’t park there. Block the spot with your car.
This used to happen to me all the time when I was going to school. I commuted 50 miles, (usually had to pee when I got there) only to find kids standing in spots saving them for a friend. The worst part was most of the students parking in the commuter lot lived in the apartment complex right next door to the the parking lot.
How I handled it depended on my mood. On a good day, I’d swing around and try to find another space. If not, I’d block the space and not move and blast the horn. Eventually they’d have to walk away.
Okay, fine, I’ll agree with this. I’ve never held a parking spot like this before, but I have been ready to pull into a spot and found someone there waving me on. I was annoyed, but I didn’t think anything of it, I just went a little further out to find a spot.
It’s not crazy cops where I live, I think it’s pretty standard policy for cops to consider cars coming at them to be an immediate life threat and an appropriate target under their rules of engagement. Maybe not for most departments, but for the vast majority of them. I’ll continue to claim that if that was a police officer standing in that spot, there’s an excellent chance you would have been killed.
I don’t know if you know, but this morning about a mile south of where I live, the cops opened fire (and killed a man) on a car that was behaving FAR more threateningly than I described–as of fifteen minutes ago, the cops who fired were ALL suspended (SOP) and I suspect that their careers are ruined, whatever the outcome of the case will be.
In reality, if I had done what I described, and it was a cop who was trying to keep the space for someone else, he would have had no need to unholster his weapon. If he flashed a badge, I would have backed off, and flashing his badge, or just telling me he was a cop, would have been sufficient. But assuming I just plowed into the spot, he would have simply arrested me for 'failing to obey police directions" or some such. No way is ANY sane cop on any police force going to unholster, much less fire, in that situation. You lead a rich fantasy life.
First come first served over first car first served encourages carpooling to the mall.
Seriously its one thing to do what the OP presented but lets say we are going to dinner and we circle the block a few times and finally I decide to let my family out to sit down while I continue to lok for parking. If a car pulls out of a parking spot right after I drop off my family, can my wife “save the spot” if noone (if waiting for the spot) until I make my loop around the block?
Given the specifics of this particular instance of a pedestrian “saving” a parking space – the SUV was there first, an old lady in a car backs out, the pedestrian steps in and bluffs the SUV driver – was wrong.
HOWEVER – I will bravely state my opinion in the face of this pile-on that not all pedestrian space holding needs to be this selfish or unethical, nor to I necessarily buy into the “spaces are for cars” theory. Spaces are also for vehicles like bikes, carts and trailers. We’ve all seen spaces held by traffic cones and “Space reserved” signs. If it can be done by the inanimate, it damn can be done by the animate.
I’ve pedestrian-held a space before. The last time I did it I was in a car with five co-workers as we dashed to a restaurant for lunch. We were on a one-way street when a woman left the restaurant and stepped inside her car right by the entrance. In order to get her space, we would have to circle the entire block; the space would not last that long. So I jumped out and stood in that the spot as she pulled out, and there were no other cars around, until the car with my co-workers came – and I turned away two other cars who were also searching for parking spaces in the process. They didn’t argue and I feel in no way that I acted illegally or unethically.
First come, first served just happens to extend to pedestrians, too.
As I read the OP, the old lady was turning around, not backing out of the space, and the SUV was behind the lady, but had not arrived at the space yet when the OP stepped into it.
-FrL-
Okay, I stand corrected, but the OP was still coming from two ROWS away, and his wife was in her vehicle behind the SUV. When I pulled the same stunt there were NO cars around that could claim they were there first; two cars passed as I stood there waiting for my carload of friends. I think i was ethically more in the clear given the circumstances.
No, not really. What would be ethically clear, to my mind, would have been if your friends would have stood there and ASKED people who drove by lookng for a spot if it was okay with them (the drivers) if they saved the spot for you. IOW, if your friends acknowledged that the spot belonged to the drivers, having cars and all, that were at that moment prepared to use the spot, but requested the personal favor that they relilnquish the spot anyway. If a driver said, “No, I’m in a rush, sorry” they would leave–much of the time drivers will let people get away with this nonsense, but at least it’s not being overbearing and blatently fucking rude.
Now if being overbearing and blatently fucking rude equates in your mind with being ethically more in the clear, that’s another issue. Personally, I still think it’s pretty damned rude even to ask, but the act of claiming that a spot somehow belongs to you with no car immediately present is way over the line, IMO.
**pseudotriton ruber ruber. ** See if I ever hold a parking space for YOU, then. Nyah.
I value your life WAY too much to ask you to risk it getting run over just for my personal convenience, Askia.
Slight hijack–in NYC, there are fancy apartment buildings (on the upper East Side, mainly) I’ve noticed that put a sign out in front of their main entrance (a fairly heavy, professionally printed placard on a metal stand, typically) saying “PLEASE DO NOT BLOCK THE ENTRANCE TO THE ‘OURSHITDON’TSTINK’ RESIDENCE.”
And people usually relinquish the perfectly legal parking space because they believe this sign has some validity, which I doubt it does. I wonder what would happen if I just pulled into to one of these spots and left my car there for a few days.
Also I wonder if our views depend on the scarcity of parking spaces where one lives. Manhattan parking spaces are like gold, and I will kill to get one, or have felt that I would have at points in the past, but when I lived where a spot would always open up in a few seconds naturally, I was much more laid back.
I witnessed a similar occurrence in Concarneau, southern Brittany, and let me advise you, if you’re an Anglophone tourist in France, don’t do this.
The zeroth rule of ethics applies, I guess: ask how it would be if everyone did this. You can envisage a queue of slow-moving traffic entering the car park, each pausing to let off their fleetest-footed passenger all with the aim of stealing a march on the other drivers. Best if everyone plays by the same rules, really.
Hell, if people want to run around a parking lot for the express purpose of not having to walk, I don’t mind. Stupid people need exercise, too.
I think in NYC standard rules might not apply. I have seen people hold spots in NYC multiple times as I briefly mentioned in post 14. I have also seen triple parking on Fordham Rd on the way to the Bronx Zoo. I have never seen that anywhere but NYC.
Jim {I hope **Elendil’s Heir ** actually returns soon, I am very curious about his response to his thread.}
I’m back.
I must admit, I was a bit taken aback by the vitriolic responses of some posters upthread (murder or mayhem, over a parking space? sheesh :rolleyes: ), but I bow to the collective wisdom of the Dope. I won’t save a parking place like this again. And to answer the questions asked:
- I’d never done it before.
- As it happens, my wife thanked me for what I’d done (she had two of our little boys with her, and appreciated not having to hike as far to the grocery store with them).
I’ve asked several others around here and have had different responses: one was sure I was wrong, and five others couldn’t decide who was in the right, FWIW.
Thanks, everyone, for your feedback.
Like a couple of us said- you certainly can ask it as a favor, but not out of a sense of entitlement.
I did what the OP did and didn’t realize how close to getting run-over I was was. I can understand wanting to hold a space but it’s really not worth angering other people there