Parking - in the new day an age - Rant

[Larry Caldwell]

That could have ended badly for you if she (or a bystander) called the cops on you. First impression most people get when they see a man yelling at a woman is that he is in some way (at least verbally) assaulting her. At the very least it might have taken a lot of explaining to get out of it.

You can live in fear if you want. I'm not going to sit still for a fraud attempt.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

My trucks are parked more now with the high fuel prices and I use our hybrid suv that is getting 41 mpg more.
I still see some trucks with 8 ft. beds at the grocery store. I've often wondered why they drive a big truck to get groceries. Maybe they just picked up a load of lumber or they're buying 500 lbs of groceries. More likely they have too much money and want to give some to the oil companies.

My little Mazda only has a 6' bed, but I sometimes fill the bed with groceries. It's a long drive to the grocery store, so I try to only go once a month. A town run also sometimes includes a feed run to the co-op and a stop at Bi-Mart for motor oil and filters. This is a rural area, so if you see a 1-ton with a long bed, you can figure it's a working truck. Half of them will have a tandem axle trailer tagging along.

 

[Eagle1]

Yup every time my bride heads near a feed store she returns with a 1000 lbs load in the back of the SUV - 20 bags.

 

[Torvy]

On size of parking spaces...it may be the local zoning, not the store that is the root cause. We had to go to a city council meeting to fight a developer who wanted 10 variances to build behind us. One of the variances was to put in fewer parking spaces. The city has a formula for how many spaces they must have at a minimum. The developers have to make small spots to fit them in the lot.

 

[deserteagle71]

My little Mazda only has a 6' bed, but I sometimes fill the bed with groceries. It's a long drive to the grocery store, so I try to only go once a month. A town run also sometimes includes a feed run to the co-op and a stop at Bi-Mart for motor oil and filters. This is a rural area, so if you see a 1-ton with a long bed, you can figure it's a working truck. Half of them will have a tandem axle trailer tagging along.

This is the situation around here also. Farmers/ranchers live a long distance (sometimes 100+ miles) from town so they don't come to town often. But when they do, they bring the crew cab long bed pickup (whole family makes the trip) and load up with supplies. And as you say, some have to bring a trailer if what they're buying won't fit in the bed of the truck.

 

[WinterDeere]

A 20' deep by 24' wide garage is called a "2 & a half" car garage.

Isn't that false advertisement?

Interesting. That would indeed be false advertising. My house has a 25' x 25' attached garage, and it was advertised simply as "two car".

The house where I grew up had a garage that was more than 30' deep x 25' wide, and I do believe the realtor listed that one as "2-1/2 car" when we sold it, owing only to the depth.

A 20' x 20' garage is not even a garage, it won't even fit either of the most popular vehicles on the road: SUV's & pickup trucks.

 

[Deere Dude]

I have the opportunity to watch a lot of parking lot painting each spring. (like watching paint dry ). The painters don't determine the spacing, they just follow the work orders. Some engineer and/or bean counter determines the spacing. And I have noticed in just the 5 years I've been at my employer, the parking spots have gotten narrower. And they added another row/isle, so the spots got shorter as well. I purposely park my Suburban in side rows that face the grass/dirt so that I can pull forward into the weeds so my rear end doesn't stick out.

Nothing irks me more in a parking lot than to look down a row of cars and seeing a vehicle sticking 2-3 feet out into the isle further than everyone else.

I drive a ext cab 8ft box dually which is getting long. Quite a few times my wife will bail out and guide me ahead or back because my depth perception lets the rear end hang out in the traffic.

 

[MossRoad]

I drive a ext cab 8ft box dually which is getting long. Quite a few times my wife will bail out and guide me ahead or back because my depth perception lets the rear end hang out in the traffic.

Plenty of times I've taken our Suburban far out into a lot and pulled through a spot all the way into the next spot so my front bumper is right at the isle, because I know my rear end will be 2' into the spot behind me. If I'd just park in 1 spot, I'd be hanging out into the isle.

 

[orezok]

OOPS…

 

[ning]

I drive a ext cab 8ft box dually which is getting long. Quite a few times my wife will bail out and guide me ahead or back because my depth perception lets the rear end hang out in the traffic.

I just use the back-up sensor
you know the thing that makes a sound when the trailer hitch hits the car behind you