Saturday, August 17, 2013

Who has the Right to a Parking Place?

 
 
 
I made a big mistake.  I went to Walmart on the Saturday before school starts. The place is full of college kids getting their groceries, dorm supplies, college needs, and other wants in addition to our local parents gathering their children's school supplies, new school clothes, and groceries for the start of the new school year.  For one who does not like to shop-  this is NOT the time to go.  But I survived, made my purchases, and proceeded to walk all the way to the end of the parking lot row to my car.  Along the way I noticed a dilemma that makes me wonder - who has the right to a parking place?  

Obviously, the parking lot was full. Cars were crawling along trying to find a place that would be reasonably close.  Drivers would scope out the shoppers leaving the store and follow them to their parking places, waiting for them to leave.  This created some traffic jams.

As I walked up the row to my car, a lady near the beginning of the row ( and therefore a premium parking place) was just opening her trunk to put her cart of purchases in.  A car stopped to wait for her and thereby get her parking place. Before too long there were 3 more cars lined up behind the first, all waiting on the woman to finish before they could move.

I reached my car and was putting my own purchases in my trunk when I noticed the passenger of the waiting car get out and walk up to the woman's car.  The woman was nowhere in sight.  Although I could not hear her, the passenger's body language of flinging arms at the cars waiting revealed she wanted the woman to hurry and pull out of the parking place.  

I want to know : Who has the right to a parking place?  Is it the car who occupies it?  Or is it the car who is waiting for it?  

The waiting car ended up leaving without the parking place. The cars behind then could move and soon the parked car pulled out.   This all transpired within 10 minutes from the time I left the store, so the parked car driver was not being unreasonably long. 

 So who has the right to a parking place? Would you ever get out of your car to tell someone to hurry up and leave their parking place? 

 

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