We spent this morning in the shopping area having a bagel breakfast, along with running some errands. It was a pretty busy Friday morning, as usual, and I was standing outside a store (I was shopping with my wife - she was inside shopping and I was outside waiting for her to finish) enjoying the beautiful weather with the baby.
I saw an old friend from yeshiva who is in town for a relatives wedding. I saw some other people I know. Basically just enjoying a pleasant shopping trip outside the store watching the people go by. Suddenly I see a police car stopping by a double-parked car.
This car was double-parked in a way that was blocking two parking spots. The 2 spots were empty, so I am not sure why the lady driving the car did not pull into the spots, and if they were full when she double-parked how they got out of the spots.
The police car stopped behind the car and on the loudspeaker called out, "The driver of the Suzuki license plate #123456789 come to your car." Nobody came and he called this out a few times. Eventually a woman shows up and was oblivious to what was going on. As she is getting opening her car door to put her bags in, the policeman calls her over.
First he tells her to pull the car into a spot, which she does. He then calls her over again and they argue a bit. I do not know what was said, they were out of ear-shot from where I was standing. I did not see him give her a ticket, though. They finished the conversation and she moved on to check her car and then went on to continue shopping.
I went a bit closer to see what was going on by her car and I see that someone, probably the owner of one of the cars that had been blocked in, had smeared plastalina, playdough, all over the drivers side of her windshield. She was pretty frustrated as she tried quickly to wipe it off, with no success. It basically just smeared some more. She went off in a huff to continue shopping.
This incident took place outside of a toy store. The driver blocked in probably went in to the toy store, bout a package of playdough and smeared it all over her windshield.
She deserved it. I hate it when people double-park. I hope she learned her lesson.
Great response to an incredibly selfish person (the double parker).
ReplyDeleteI also cannot stnd people that park in a driveway completely blocking the sidewalk so that pedestrians have to go into the street to get around. My new response is to continue walking a straight line directly up and on top and over their car. Once in a while they even see me do it.
that's funny. have they ever said anything to you?
ReplyDeleteShe did deserve it I guess. This was in Israel? The police made the announcement in English or did you just translate it lol?
ReplyDeletein Israel. The announcement was in Hebrew and I translated it.... it was pretty interesting to watch...
ReplyDeletehi from France very nice and interesting site.
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ReplyDeleteaargh! That is one of the few
ReplyDeletepet-peeves I have. I have worked hard on myself to try to be 'dan lichaf zechut' other drivers, but there are times when it's nearly impossible to understand why some people park the way they do!!!
even if you have to just "run in for a minute" it never is that quick. there are alwasy delays. There is no excuse why you have to be so lazy that you cannot park around the corner or down the block and walk for one whole minute...
ReplyDeleteHehe! Awesome move. In NYC, I am of the firm belief that double-parking is the cause of most traffic problems. The bottleneck it causes forces drivers to try and squeeze past one another, leading to a block-up, and this backs up to a cross-street, which then can't go, which then leads to another backup... etc. All because one moron couldn't spend 2 minutes pulling into a spot or otherwise getting out of the way. Morons. They deserve to be annoyed.
ReplyDeleteThere is a bit of a parking problem near my work, as there are a lot of offices in the area and not enough parking spots. I cant begin to describe how frustrating it is when someone double parks, blocking a spot in an already crowded area. Someone once taped me, because i accidentally parked on a lot that I blocked a reserved spot. It was a total accident, and I felt really bad about it. So much that I was thankful all they did was put tape on my windshield. I definitely deserved it for not being more careful.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, people who do it with caring, or looking, or paying attention or not caring, deserve to be keyed... bad....
I'm surprised there was any announcement...why not a big fat ticket?
ReplyDeletejb- i wondered the same thing at the time. I would guess they were considering having the car towed and were first trying to call out to the owner to get the car moved quicker than the towing company could be ordered... They wanted the car moved out of the way, and a ticket would not do that.
ReplyDeleteThere is an even more annoying phenomenon in Israel -- people don't follow the lines and take up more spots than necessary. The result is that half the spots are rendered useless because of carelessness. This goes on daily in the RBS shopping center.
ReplyDeleteI used to think that it was a charedi problem -- until I tried parking in the Malkha Mall and saw that has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with a Mediterranean attitude of "yihye beseder."
I agree with you. that problem is prevalent, and even more common than the doubleparking problem. It is especially frustrating at places like the train station when you are running to get the train and can't find a parking spot because 5 or 6 cars have taken up 2 spots each.
ReplyDeleteI think they just do not think ahead - they get there early and find an empty lot. So they park without being vcareful to only use one spot. After all there are so many spots available what's the big deal. They do not think ahead and realize that in another hour the lot will be full and every spot is valuable. And they do nto care enough about anybody else but themselves to trouble themselves to think ahead.
They need a good keying.
I wish I could be melamed zchus -- except that I see Israelis do the same thing when it is crowded on Friday morning. I have come to the conclusion (after living in this country for years) that Israelis just don't care. Period.
ReplyDeleteparking where i live is really competitive. on a night before street cleaning days it can take me an hour to find a spot i need (so i don't have to move the car the next day). i hate it when people park taking up two spots.
ReplyDelete