etc
The utter selfishness and laziness of people continues to astound me. We have previously seen pic on this blog of people who park on the sidewalk in front of their destination instead of parking a few feet further on in a vacant legal parking space.
In the case shown above, there are several vacant parking spaces in front of the subject vehicle. Nonetheless, (s)he parked with tail end sticking out onto the street. And then turned on the car flashers to alert everyone that the vehicle was where it shouldn’t have been.
Fortunately, a traffic officer went by in the opposite direction, and I stopped to see if he would take the bait. He did, U-turning a block further down the street (which took some time, given the steady flow of traffic) and returning to the scene of the crime. He wrote the ticket; I took the picture. Transaction concluded with myself thanking the officer for issuing the ticket. He wasn’t sure if I was being sarcastic.
In other cases, I do what Charles recommends: take a picture of the violator. If the motorist is in the car, they will move, usually with show of annoyance, which ‘proves’ they knew they were breaking the social conventions. Peer pressure.
Mind, motorists are not the sole problem. We still live in a society where we encourage one particular vehicle type to actually park on the sidewalks. And some cyclists are pretty inconsiderate sidewalk blockers.
I work for a small store in the west end we have around 35 parking spots yet people park where they should not be it parking right infront of the warehouse or block our work trucks in the worst is when people park right infront of our staff door that goes right into the store.
Heh, nice.
I’ve always been amused by people who put on their 4-ways when parked where they shouldn’t be. “I know I’m parked illegally, I’ll only be a minute! I promise! I’ll be right back!”. Yeesh. I’ve talked with a couple of traffic officers and both have said that the 4-ways make their job that much easier. Good.
Two sidewalk blocking stories:
1. I used to live near St. Vincent Hospital, and every evening I would take my dog for a walk and admire the creative parking strategies employed by the hospital workers. My favourite was people who, when confronted with an icy curb that blurs the line between the sidewalk and the road, assumed there was no sidewalk and parked completely blocking it. I used to reward the most successful of these artistes by decorating their doorhandles with something my dog left behind.
2.When I lived in Toronto I often walked my dog on the sidewalk on St Claire ave. Often there were people riding their bikes on the sidewalk, which drove me INSANE. So I would let some slack into the dogs leash and she always seemed to know to wander over to the other side of the sidewalk and completely block the passage of the biker – dog on one side, me on the other, and a leash lazily drooping across the middle.