Why not to park your car near 5 empty parking spaces

Interesting story to tell. My modus operandi is to go for 40-100 mile drives early(<7am) every other weekend. This Sunday I decided to be adventurous and stopped at a coffee shop which makes a good breakfast. At about 7:10am there were two of us in the shop with 2 cars in the parking spaces. Mine and one end and the lady's at the other end with 5 parking spaces between us. I made sure to hug the very far right of my spot. Wasn't worried as the spaces are big and people are to lazy to be out and about on a Sunday around 7am, so I thought
I have a habit of vacuuming my food so about 7:30am I was done and paying the bill. I noticed an older Mercedes had just parked next to my car. It didn't leave a space between my car and themselves. I noticed the woman was driving and she was probably in her 70s. I quickly paid my bill and started walking towards my car.
She looked at me and said is that your car and I responded yes. Her response "Beautiful". At this point I was a little nervous as I noticed her husband, much older(turned out to be 80) didn't seem in good shape. He opened the door and pushed to all the way open, probably missing my car by about 3-4 inches. Since I have an elderly father, I understood this guy needed the door to be fully open and then he struggled his way out.Stooped and barely able to walk. They were nice enough people yet the lack of awareness was astounding.

Lesson : Don't take your f-car to the coffee shop even if it is 7am. If you do and the parking lot is empty park far away.

 

I park all my cars away.. as far as possible. I got my GT350R nicked twice by kids opening doors, and the M3 once to... I will definitely be paranoid with the F430 now

 

Just park normally and lump occasional ding repair in with detailing the car.

 

until the ding removes paint and now it's a a major thing...

 

To me, it's not the number of cars parked around, it's the distance to the store. Typically, people unconcerned with damaging others properly are also unlikely to walk farther than is absolutely necessary so they'll pick the close in spots.

 

yeah distance to store is everything. park far.

 

I always love it when you park the car in an empty lot. And then with ALL THE EMPTY SPACES, the one other car in the lot will park right next to yours (every ****** time).

 

I've posted this before, but I parked at the very far end of a parking lot that had loads of open spots. Came out to this.

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You are absolutely right. I expect none the less from Redneck truck drivers... I still go far... sometimes it works. Sometimes I use that spot with one side blocked like curb or trolley return area.. at least chance of damage reduced by half.

 

Here's what I use when I park my car in a public place -

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I used to park in the north forty but now I can’t be bothered. Too many morons intentionally park close to you out there just to be a jerkoff. Instead I look for a safe looking space that’s close, usually one sided where the car is next to a curb or something where people can’t park. It’s funny because my wife gets pissed I park her car up close too… she’s taken to parking further away now that she’s got a car she likes.

 

Lol at the guy over the line even. People.. never fails.

I took mine for a quick hardware store run one day parked way way off in the lot by the out of season closed garden center entrance. Literally hundreds of open spots. LONG walk. Sure enough the junkiest POS rusty truck parked right next to me close enough to throw a ding. I'm sure he was giggling the whole time amd meant no real harm but still.

 

True -- I went to McDonalds and parked next to the dumpster for god's sake and someone pulls in right next to me with some POS van . He had the whole rest of the lot . Go Figure !!

 

Once in a great while when I park my car well away, I'll come back to find a nice car parked next to mine. I think they figure I'm not going to ding their car any more they they will ding mine.

 

Me too, except I usually double bag mine.

 

The trophy you get when you die for being The Biggest Jerk must really be something. Sure a lot of folks trying really hard to get one.

I usually park way, way, far away from the place I'm going to walk in to. Most times I return and I'm still the one and only. But there are always those trophy seekers...

 

I usually case an area before I decide on a parking spot, and try to put a lot of thought into how and where to place my car. If you place it where the only options for others is to park in front or rear of your car, the chances of damage is less. I usually amaze my wife as to where I can shoehorn a small Ferrari into and sometimes requires her to get out first but I think it's worth the effort for sure. Just the thought of dealing with body damage makes me nauseous due to the fact the closest competent body shop is almost in another time zone. Another point is that I can park my beater DD or my truck anywhere and never get a scratch.

 

People go out of their way to park next to a nice car. Don't ever expect reasonable behavior. Too many dopes out there.

 

Sometimes you get lucky when you park way out in the parking lot and nobody parks around you. About the best you can hope for.
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Allen,
I assume that is your cart

No joke, I ask because once my Dad parked his brand new car waaaay out far in the parking lot, with the unexpected consequence that the additional distance gave a runaway shopping cart the extra momentum to make a nice dent in his car. I always thought it was a random incident until a couple of weeks ago when I saw a guy push his cart as hard as he could, hoping that it would land in a unused part of the lot, but it veered off and almost hit somebody's car. I did yell at him and noted the plate in case the cart were in fact to have come in contact with a car or person.

And I thought there was no such thing as negative IQ

 

Yeah, it's obnoxious. Folks don't understand you purposely parked the car far away and still park near you to get close up to the car to check it out - no self-awareness, at least the OPs post - they are older - a cognitive decline which will hit us all may explain it.

 

It's my daily driver (Taurus PI), but "C'mon Man!" He couldn't even get straight in the spot.
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Crew cab long bed truck (non-dually) that was parked wayyyyyy out in the boonies of HD parking lot was gone when I got back, and I'd gained a Panamera on my nose, but the kicker was the standard "prick in a Porsche" parking......
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.......by the guy in the Toyota replacing the extra-long truck, which was considerately not taking up two spots nearer the store. (We typically park like this, out in the boonies, in our F-350s)
These were literally furthest spots in the SE corner before the entry drive, except for the row facing the drive, which was occupied by a truck/trailer parked across about 6 spaces. The HD itself is several hundred feet to the right. The not-too-far bldg to the left is the side of a Chuck-E-Cheeze that's near-dead, even more so at this time of the day.

 

The jerk with the dually can’t even keep it between the lines....

 

Well yea, why would I want to ding those? Duh!