When I got back from Stuttgart yesterday and set about the always embarrassingly too-long process of finding where I parked my car in the huge airport lot, I ended my search with a bit of an unpleasant surprise. To be fair, nothing bad actually happened, but the scene I arrived at was a sort of frozen moment of a close call, and it got me wondering. What I found was the scene you see up above there, where that GMC SUV had been parked unsettlingly close to the face of my little Nissan Pao.
To me, even with no actual contact, this feels too close. If it was me parking that GMC and I walked out and saw this, I’d get back in the car and back up at least six inches or so. I just wouldn’t feel right about parking my car so precariously close to another car.
If we look at the photo, you can see the GMC is actually over the dividing line of the two spots:
In the upper part of the photo you can clearly see the line that divides the spots on the left from those on the right, and that GMC’s nose is definitely flopping over that line. There’s maybe an inch and a half to two inches between our two cars? Again, there’s no contact here, but this still feels wrong.
David and I encountered something similar – though worse, as there was contact – at Pebble Beach last year, and made this little reel:
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Now, my situation is a bit different. There was no harm done, at all. But it’s also not a parking job I would personally feel comfortable with. The side-to0-side parking closeness rules I think are a little more clear, because you need to leave enough room for someone to open their car door, ideally without anyone dinging anyone. But front and rear? There really aren’t established rules.
In parallel parking along a street, especially in a crowded city, things tend to get very tight, which can make exiting the spot a challenge, or, for people who are okay with the practice, sometimes a touch method is just used, letting bumpers bump and grind with the ruthless abandon of crabgrass.
But in a parking lot? In a parking lot, I think you simply shouldn’t park like this. Even without contact, it just makes everything feel wrong and unsettled and precarious, and why would anyone want that? You wouldn’t, that’s why!
So what’s your rule? Is parking as close as Dr. GMC Acadia did to my Pao okay? Is anything good as long as there’s no touching? Or are there standards and rules for parking life?
Personally, I think you need to at least keep the extremities of your car within the bounding lines. If the ass hangs out a bit into the main lanes, well, okay, but everything else? Stay in the lines.
What do we think? Tell me, dammit!
