A Crooked Car Or A Crooked Driver?

I parked my car at the open-air carpark near Blk 83 Marine Parade just now and went to the food centre at Blk 84 to have dinner. (This carpark has perpendicular parking, i.e. the carpark lots are drawn perpendicular to the curb.) Because the adjacent cars were all parked out of alignment to the lots, I had no choice but to follow accordingly.

When I came back from dinner, I was surprised to find a white car parked very close to my car's driver side. The gap was less than a foot wide and hence it was almost impossible for me to get into the car through the driver's door. I checked on the other side of the white car and found that there was a large gap from the adjacent car. Just then, the driver of the white car came along and opened the boot of his car.

I said to him, "How can you park your car like that? How am I supposed to get into my car like this?"

What irked me more was actually not how he had "misparked" his car but his reply: "But look at my car - it is parked right in the centre of the lot. It's your car that's crookedly parked."

I said, "Hey, look at the car on the left side of mine - it is also parked out of alignment so I just have to follow him."

What he said next almost caused a parking-rage incident. By then, it seemed evident to me that he had purposely parked his car that way. I couldn't believe my ears when he said, "You can climb in through the other side."

I was lost for words for a moment. I felt my blood boiling inside me. After a while, his conscience seemed to prick him and he asked, "Do you want me to shift my car?"

Hey, I thought that was a no-brainer, right? But instead I said, "No, it's alright." And then I went away for 15 minutes to buy something sharp. That seemed to have worked - when I came back, the white car had been driven off.

Now you tell me who was the crooked driver?

Another Parking Idiot

I never expected that within one week, I could encounter a second parking idiot. Yesterday (a Sunday), this off-peak Hyundai car, reg. no. SFP1330K, was parked in Deck 4A of Blk 171 Ponggol Field, a multi-storey HDB carpark just next to Punggol Plaza. When I parked my car there at 5.30 pm, the car was already parked this way. When I went back to get my car at 7.00 pm, it was still parked this way. (Sorry that the timing on my camera was probably showing GMT time.)

Parking at this car park on Sundays and public holidays is free, like most other HDB car parks. However, non-residents must park on Deck 3 and above. Lower decks are reserved for residents. Because of its proximity to Punggol Plaza, many weekend visitors to the shopping centre take advantage of the free parking in this car park. (I checked - this car did not have a resident carpark disc and hence probably belonged to a visitor, like me). Parking a car in two lots is a despicable act which no sane driver would condone, even more so if this selfish act is done in a popular car park like this one.

Unlike the driver I encountered earlier in the week whom Chun See thought could have been a victim of circumstances, this driver clearly had no excuse for parking the car this way. If you refer to the above photo, there was a passage way to the right of the car. The driver had left a very wide clearance of at least 4 feet away from the edge of the passage way. In fact, he/she had parked the car more than 1 foot into the next lot.

A free car park does not mean a free-for-all car park where drivers can park any way they like. Alright, so he/she was driving an off-peak car which meant that he/she probably drove only once or twice a week. He/she may lack some practice in parking but still, it is no bloody excuse to park this way. Clearly an idiot, no doubt about it.