Paranoid parking in parking lots

Well have a new si and I work at a hospital with a busy parking lot I’m dreading Parking there because I feel like my cars gonna get all dinged up Am I the only one who’s paranoid about this kinda stuff ?

No, you are not. I park on a 3 level parking garage where the top(street) and middle levels are always totally full by 10AM, but no one can be arsed to drive down one more level so the bottom underground level is usually only 30-40% full.

Because I get to work early before the top levels fill up, I used to always park on the top by the exit. As soon as I got the Si, I moved down to the bottom level and picked a spot I liked and now I park there every day. I think maybe 3 or 4 days in the last year I've had someone park next to me.

You'll have to be selective about your parking. Pick an end spot. If there's a part of the parking lot with larger spots or a weird end spot that is extra large, park there. Nestle against the end as hard as you can to leave additional space where someone might park next to you.

im the same way, always looking for an end spot in parking lots because fucking there are inconsiderate ass ppl who will ding the shit up on my car.

I park far out in every parking. I like walking, so it's a 2 bird one stone scenario for me.

Plus, you are just protecting your property. I have been hit by shopping cards, car doors, etc. while I was in my old cars and people never even apologized. You can't control others' actions but you can control yours: parking away to protect your property is not paranoia; it's a solution.

Oh man, it's not only you! Every chance I get, I park in the back of a lot. If I can't get the back of a lot, I'll take the end of a row and park on or as close to the curb/line as possible. It won't keep your car perfect, but it will help keep it looking better than most!

Brock728 said:

Well have a new si and I work at a hospital with a busy parking lot I’m dreading Parking there because I feel like my cars gonna get all dinged up Am I the only one who’s paranoid about this kinda stuff ?

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Nope you’re not alone! As much as I try eventually some fool will park too close and ding me. There’s no fool proof method either. I’ve parked next to premium or luxury cars, trashed out cars, it doesn’t matter. Some people don’t give a crap. You can put off the inevitable but at some point it will happen, sadly. Death, taxes and door dings. Hehe

I park as far away from cars as I can. I don’t mind walking to where I need to go if it saves me from getting my car dented.

Always a concern. Find an end spot, middle of three empty spaces, or grit my teeth if need to park next to another car.

Yea by the time I get in usually I’ll be lucky if I can even find a spot and if there is one it’s always a tight squeeze between two cars the parking is always a mess every morning. I try my best to avoid other people unfortunately most of the time it’s impossible.

TypeSiR said:

Always a concern. Find an end spot, middle of three empty spaces, or grit my teeth if need to park next to another car.

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I’ll always use the empty far end of the lot where nobody wants to park because it’s too far to walk.
Amazingly enough, all too often when I come back out to my car, some assclown has his $300 shitbox parked a foot away from my driver’s door.
And there are dozens of empty spots all over.
WTF.

silverrascal said:

Nope you’re not alone! As much as I try eventually some fool will park too close and ding me. There’s no fool proof method either. I’ve parked next to premium or luxury cars, trashed out cars, it doesn’t matter. Some people don’t give a crap. You can put off the inevitable but at some point it will happen, sadly. Death, taxes and door dings. Hehe

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I think the mentality is that since certain individuals don't see their property as valuable or as having much worth ("what? it's just a car?") - these individuals then project that mentality onto other people's property. Main thing I've tried to find if needed are people who park well, I think that's a better indicator than car/income/whatever other variable. This generally includes people who back into spaces.

The 1 door ding I've had was from a few months ago, from a poorly parked RAV4's passenger door. I've found that most who buy RAV4s have given up on life. Or are heavily into Facebook MLM schemes.

Luckily this isn't an issue for me at work, because 1) people care about each other's property a bit more and 2) I can parallel park against a small curb each morning.

What can ya do but try to do everything on your own part to be as careful as possible and then hope other people do the same

Thankfully, parking at work is not a problem for me.
Everywhere else, I'm parking as far away from everyone and everything that I can. Hell, I'll even grab a shopping cart if it's anywhere near and take it back to the store.
If my wife and I are together, I'll let her drive around the lot while I run in and get what we need, just to avoid parking altogether.

aymehr said:

I park far out in every parking. I like walking, so it's a 2 bird one stone scenario for me

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i like your way of thinking dude.

At my college me and my friend park in the garage on the fourth floor (one floor under the top floor) in the back that is farthest away from the stairs and elevator. We also park on the inner line of our spots just in case some drunk person decides to park next to us and fling their door open we have 1 or 2 extra feet of space. My fellow college residents scare me.