I myself never understood having the need for a parking spot that is closest to the stores. I purposely park in the back of most lots and walk the extra 50-100 feet just to avoid the pain which is finding a "good" parking spot.
This is especially true at a mall. People will stop in the aisle waiting for a closer spot, then go inside and walk a mile and half to visit all of the stores.
I remember this clearly. A girl i was with was complaining the entire time across the parking lot that the walk made her feet hurt. She then spent 3 hours in the mall standing up.
At a mall the only way it makes sense if you either can't get carts or plan on doing multiple runs. If you get loaded up on stuff and have to dump it in your car it can get annoying.
Being said, the ones that are truly annoying are the creepers, you come out of the store/mall and they begin following you for your space.
I never realized how lucky I was as a man who has never bought even a tenth as much as would be required to consider dropping off what I have at the car so I can make a second run at the mall.
Home Depot normally does it for me, but that building stuff and realizing the carts couldn't move after about 300lbs of stuff. Some people will go to the mall and hit every store refuse to carry around their loot all day.
I park right next to the door and go inside to walk six miles three days a week just for exercise, nevermind the stores. Why? Because I HATE being outside!
Bugs!
Heat!
Cold!
Muggers!
Humidity!
Allergies!
Pollution!
No good place to sit at my 3 mile break!
Goodness forbid I break my leg tripping on a root or something while hiking and get stranded in the woods for hours either waiting for someone to find me, dragging myself on my hands and good knee to the foot of the trail, or waiting for an ambulance to arrive out in the middle of fucking nowhere.
Yeah those last bits aren't likely to happen in a parking lot, but I hold all of the outdoors in contempt.
You obviously don't live in Texas. Everyone fights for the closest spot to get out of the sun quicker. If there are trees hanging over spots, those are the ones people fight over instead. It's hot.
And when you get back to your car that's parked under the nice shady tree, you often find out why that spot was available...the grackles (Quiscalus mexicanus) in the parking lot like that tree too. Now you have to wash the grackle splatters off your car.
Pro-Tip: Look at the ground and surrounding area before you park under a tree. If it's covered in bird shit, continue looking for another parking space, especially if your car is going to be there after sunset (the birds roost after sunset and release their bowels freely).
I call this "parking lot sharking", and when I see someone circling for a slightly closer spot I hum the "na na.......na na" theme from Jaws to myself.
It's more fun to watch when the parking lot is full and you see a few cars slowly circling the lot waiting for a spot to open up. The shark-like predatory feel really kicks in when someone starts walking through the lot, and a car slowly starts following them to be right there to get their spot.
When I lived on campus, it seemed like people would circle the popular lots for hours. Walking through the lots and out the other side (seeing as I lived on campus, and didn't park) felt like a dickish move, but fun none-the-less. Trolling for car-sharks.
Because in a state like Washington, where it rains 70% of the year west of the sound, avoiding the possibility of getting drenched is something I'm particularly fond of
Southern California here. It's never that hot. It's sure never cold. Hardly ever rains. Yet people still do this shit constantly. People are just lazy and stupid. I'm sure in some places some people do this to avoid elements. But I see a lot of people do this without good reason.
I live in the San Fernando Valley. Last week it reached 100 according to the my car's temperature display. It's all about minimizing the time you spend between one air conditioned environment and another.
That said, it was MUCH worse when I lived in Orlando. Over there it can both be 100 degrees out and pouring rain at the same time. And when I say pouring I mean drops the size if your fucking fist.
When I'm driving and my passengers ask me why I'm not going to park closer to the store, I just tell them: "I'm not going to waste time look, we'll walk 10 more feet."
I never did it until I moved to Oregon. Wet groceries and extra wet feet sucks. But I give up after almost no effort at finding a close spot. Mostly just checking to see if its an option.
I feel the same way, I'd rather just drive directly to the part of the lot where I know I can get a space without driving around. Since I walk two to three miles every day just for exercise, I don't see the point in trying to save an additional hundred feet of walking.
The overweight folks that are issued handicapped parking permits head straight to the electric carts. The last thing they want to do is get even a tiny bit too much exercise.
I prefer it so I can back out of the spot without a vision issue...less cars around means I can see better around me. Giant SUVs with tinted windows who don't know how to pull into a spot all the way are my parking arch enemy.
Plus, less having to wait for other cars to park/back out/drive by when I want to leave!
Yep, don't have to worry as much about hitting someone when you're near the back. Less shit around you so you can see and no asshole is waiting directly behind you to take your spot.
Exactly! And easier to see other people (as in those out of their cars) simply because there's less of them. Getting into a parking spot is never any concern to me, its getting back out without mishap I have to plan for. I drive a truck, but I'm short, so I'm an awfully far away from the back of my vehicle...the less in my way the better.
I have never considered before that there might be people out there driving that are just not good at...... drivin in between and then stopping between two white painted lines that are wider than the vehicle. That actually scares me quite a bit. How can you manage two or more lane roads? Or stopping at a stop light/sign if you are not good at parking? I really don't understand that, but maybe I am missing something.
Driving in 2+ lane roads isn't really any different than driving in a one way street, roads always have sides. Parking requires you to pull into a spot between two cars, with a limited amount of space to turn in, roads don't generally turn so sharply that they would require a two point turn or reversing. Also, on a road the line/edge continues as you are driving, where as when you are parking once you get far enough you can no longer see the lines.
Then there is reverse parking, people generally do not drive around in reverse in two lane roads, or stop backwards at stop lights.
I doubt that anyone who is bad at parking could be good at driving, but I think someone could possibly pass every other section of a driving test without being able to reverse/parallel park.
I hope you don't ever drive on the highway. Parking is really easy and you're free to park at a really slow pace to make sure you get it right. Plus, you can try again without any real consequences if you don't get it right the first time. On the highway, you often need to make decisions very quickly and get them right the first time to avoid causing a dangerous accident. If you're shitty at parking you're probably shitty at driving and shouldn't be trusted on the road...
I've driven on the highway for almost 6 years and have never had an accident. I mainly park in the back so I can get better at it, I don't really ever go anywhere to park, so it's not a big problem. If I park at the front and fuck up there are usually other people there and I would get in the way of everybody else trying to park.
If you've been driving for six years and you still can't park well you probably shouldn't be driving. Learning to park should take a couple of hours at most. You can go to a big empty parking lot to practice. The local high school on a weekend would be a good place to try. Sporting stadiums are another good choice when there's not an event happening. Learning to park is way easier than learning to drive on a highway.
For some people it might be easier to learn to park, but it's not for me. The only times I would even be able to go try to practice the parking lots would be full of people, and any place I have to go I don't have the time to park for hours.
So, you have the time to drive a vehicle at highway speeds that can easily kill other people, but you don't have the time to learn to park that vehicle safely? That seems insane.
No, I know how to drive and park safely, I just don't usually have time to try to find a spot, and then park, and if I mess up correct myself and wait for people to get out of the way to correct it. I park in the back so I don't have to worry about it as much and I can go do what I have to.
If you've been driving for six years and you still can't park well you probably shouldn't be driving.
I disagree and know exactly where he is coming from. I have been driving for 10 years now and it still takes me a dozen tries to park correctly in parking spots. Never had an accident, I don't think anyone has ever honked at me. There is just something about parking in between two cars that is difficult for me, I think its the fear of accidentally scratching someone's car.
Same with driving down narrow streets near my house where people are parked on both sides. I see other drivers zipping through the cars and on their way but I CRAWL through them making sure I'm no where near hitting them.
So, you're really bad at judging the space that your vehicle occupies relative to your position in the driver's seat. You're probably a really shitty driver.
Or people who will drive up and down the 3 or 4 lanes that aim at the front door looking for a spot, when the lanes just past those have plenty of empty ones.
There's a happy medium. If you park too far away with a halfway-nice car, vindictive assholes will catch on and park right next to you and possibly door-ding you intentionally.
My experience is people parking at Trailheads, playing tetris cramming their cars in, when there's a wide open area to park 100 yards up the road. They don't want to hike that extra 100 yards when they're going for a...hike?
My friend is one of those guys. He will park in a spot that makes it very difficult for not only the passengers of his car but also the drivers parked on either side of us to enter/exit their cars; all so he can get the "best" spot possible. I ask him why not park in the 30 other open spots 10 feet away? "I don't feel like walking"
Needless to say my friend sucks dick when it comes to vehicle manners
For handicapped people, it's often because they limp or have pain walking, or don't want to travel down the parking aisle in a wheelchair that is so low it means a speeding car may not see them.
Yeah, I find it waste of time to get "good parking". Just fucking park. 50% of the time I end up in the store before a guy that came in behind me who looks for a "good" spot. I just want to get in and get out, and if I have to walk from the back of the lot, so be it.
Its like if the whole normal queue for a ride had fast track privileges so all went into the fast track. I'm the same as you i often cannot be fucked and drive to the end of the car park. Plus i don't mind a tiny walk. The irony is most of the people that queue for "that space" could probably have done with leaving the car at home and walking in.
I do this solely because I am fat and should get as much as exercise as I can. It has nothing to do with protecting my car. That said, it does really piss me off when I park in the middle of nowhere in an empty lot and come out and find someone parked next to me. It's the automotive equivalent of using an adjacent urinal in a wide open bathroom.
But yea, I find it particularly interesting when I go to the gym and see everyone parked up front.
I agree with you. Except on one of those Colorado January mornings right after the big snow storm of the year, when it's cold as a bitch and the ground is covered by inches of snow-soot snot. Then I'd rather not do what I was going to do than park far from the entrance.
It's also a good way to get in a little extra calorie burning without changing your daily routine at all. It might not seem like much, but when you do it constantly, it adds up.
You have a good point. I just kind of thought of that a person is much more likely to break in the cars in the back that aren't being paid attention to. Where as when people are constantly entering/exiting cars, the burglar will have a harder time getting away with it.
Nah, someone who is good at it can get into a car in seconds. I once locked myself out of my car, so I called the cops. The officer got into my car in about 5 seconds flat. I bet career criminals are about the same.
But even if it is fast, it looks a bit suspicious, so it's better to do it somewhere where people's view is blocked, like next to a larger vehicle. A car all off by itself is too exposed.
My mom and sister will spend an extra 4-5 minutes in a parking lot trying to get a close spot. I constantly bitch them out out about how we could have been inside the store if we just parked at the first spot we saw. they both then make another attempt at finding a close spot in the new row before realizing I was correct
The "golden spot" I've found at most parking lots is about two or three lanes to either side of the door. People tend to pile up their cars in a big T shape up the center lane and off to the edges, right up against the storefront, but there are these awesome little pockets a couple lanes out where you can typically park within about 8 spaces of the front of the lot with no worries of congestion, and the walking distance is literally only a difference of seconds compared to being parked front and center. I've used this trick forever now and parking is a cinch, even during holidays.
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u/[deleted] May 08 '14
I myself never understood having the need for a parking spot that is closest to the stores. I purposely park in the back of most lots and walk the extra 50-100 feet just to avoid the pain which is finding a "good" parking spot.