'Clarkson' Parking

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Cartus

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I saw this example of what I have heard described as 'Clarkson' parking (after a TV presenter apparently) the other day. it seems unreasonable to me, deliberately taking up two spaces in a busy car park but it seems a modern phenomenon.

Cars are much larger than they were in the past, there are at least 600,000 additional vehicles coming on to Britain's roads annually, should spaces in car parks be made much larger?
 
Cartus said:
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I saw this example of what I have heard described as 'Clarkson' parking (after a TV presenter apparently) the other day. it seems unreasonable to me, deliberately taking up two spaces in a busy car park but it seems a modern phenomenon.

Cars are much larger than they were in the past, there are at least 600,000 additional vehicles coming on to Britain's roads annually, should spaces in car parks be made much larger?
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No, such drivers should be slapped around the head with a wet haddock.
 
Car park isn't that busy and if I owned that car I'd park it that way too. Those look like Tesco miserly spaces, too much chance of Mrs Fiat Junker denting my car with her drivers door.
 
Steep said:
Car park isn't that busy and if I owned that car I'd park it that way too. Those look like Tesco miserly spaces, too much chance of Mrs Fiat Junker denting my car with her drivers door.
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Yep...wet haddock for you too :)

I'd take gear pleasure in parking mm from his driver's door.
 
Steep said:
if I owned that car I'd park it that way too.
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It's only an old s***ter, they don't take very good care of it. looks like they haven't even noticed half the exhaust is missing. ;)
 
I would reverse in & park as close as possible to his driver,s door side.:banana::D
 
I have done this but only if there wasn't a blue badge bay available.
 
who cares, its the way of the land, i certainly don't
 
I park in the space - but give myself as much room as possible on the Driver's side.

My blue badge is on my dashboard and pretty visible , but since I was caught in a car park[ which didn't have Blue badge spaces ] one day and had to wait 2 hours for the owner/driver of the car in the next door space who thought it necessary to park about 2ins off my door , I now have a very polite note I attach to my window asking people to give me room to open my door as I'm a disabled driver with limited mobility.

OK I drive a Freelander , but the height is more comfortable for me - much easier to get in and I don't have to fight my way out which I do with a lower car. I also prefer the higher position for visibility when I'm driving - been driving Land Rovers for some years now.
 
Cartus said:
Cars are much larger than they were in the past, ............ should spaces in car parks be made much larger?
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Not sure the majority of mass market cars are much larger these days, but it would be interesting to compare.
Yes, parking spaces should be larger, like they used to be.
 
I had a Peugeot RCZ 2 door and it was a nightmare trying to get out with such wide swing doors in a modern car park, I usually tried to park in one of the end bays. I did once park across 2 bays but the car park was almost empty.
 
Steep said:
Car park isn't that busy and if I owned that car I'd park it that way too. Those look like Tesco miserly spaces, too much chance of Mrs Fiat Junker denting my car with her drivers door.
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Would it cost more to repair a dent in the Mitsubishi here than it would the Astra on the left of the picture? (Which is probably worth quite a bit more money).
 
MatBin said:
I had a Peugeot RCZ 2 door and it was a nightmare trying to get out with such wide swing doors in a modern car park, I usually tried to park in one of the end bays. I did once park across 2 bays but the car park was almost empty.
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My Scirocco's doors are just as wide I imagine and I've never had a significant problem getting out in a car park.
 
Cartus said:
Where will we find the additional room to make car parks bigger do you think?
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The answer would be you don't, instead of painting 15 parking spaces in the row they rather make each bay slightly bigger and have 14 bays per row.
 
I suffer from driving a med sized 3 door car, so I generally park in an end bay with yards of space, it's not a new car and I don't care if everything else in the car park is worth more or would cost more to repair. I just need to be able to open the bloody massive door to get in.

No I've never parked across 2 bays. But I'm sick of arseholes who don't think that I might have left a huge space on the drivers side for a reason.
 
OldCarlos said:
Not sure the majority of mass market cars are much larger these days, but it would be interesting to compare.
Yes, parking spaces should be larger, like they used to be.
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One bored afternoon at work I researched Ford cars after a similar chat, and the Focus is now larger than a mk1 Cortina, the Fiesta larger than a mk1 Escort, and the Ka larger than a mk1 Fiesta. Same for Mondeo - Granada

So they've all effectively grown an entire 'class'
 
It's a bit annoying if you can't find a space anywhere then come across parking like this.

That said - I can understand why somebody would choose to park like this.

If it was a Veyron we'd all understand. Doesn't mean this car means any less to the owner.
 
OldCarlos said:
Not sure the majority of mass market cars are much larger these days, but it would be interesting to compare.
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All cars grow over the years as they bring out a replacement model. Then manufacturers bring out a smaller model because they no longer have a small model and that grows too. It's not just a problem with width but a problem with length too.
 
Cartus said:
Where will we find the additional room to make car parks bigger do you think?
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They have been around for a while, they are called multi storey's.
A lot of car parks are irregular shapes, meaning somewhere there will be some spaces that allow a bit more room. I always park half in a space and half in the hatchings on the end of a row, it's always furthest from the shop too so not many others can be bothered to walk that far. Besides, the wife needs the exercise. ;)
 
not so much this, but the parking at the end of rows of spaces kinda gets my back up a little ... when you see them pull up, with little consideration for the flow of traffic and then glare as you nearly clip them as they clamber out puts the smile back on my face though
 
The trouble is that when you see people parked like that, you really have no idea if they parked like a twit, or were actually parked as reasonably as they could next to someone else who parked like a twit who has subsequently left.

I mean, it's a GTO with an aftermarket exhaust which could house a small family of badgers, so yes, it was probably them, but still. :D
 
Some car parking spaces are ridiculously small though. A few weeks ago I was in Grays in Essex and parked at the station. My car is only a VW Golf, but even so it was longer than the spaces. Some big cars were sticking out a metre or more.

What you can't see in this photo is how narrow the spaces were. You can see that there's only about 10-20cm between my nearside wheels and the white line, and it was the same the other side. All along the car park, only 2 out of every 3 spaces were used: there were two cars next to one another, then a gap; two cars and a gap, and so on.

It's a rare instance where the owners could fit in MORE cars by making the spaces BIGGER.

16114401_1507618745930032_3365295520412544127_n.jpg
 
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Cartus said:
Where will we find the additional room to make car parks bigger do you think?
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You don't make the car park bigger, just a couple less spaces.


Dave1 said:
The answer would be you don't, instead of painting 15 parking spaces in the row they rather make each bay slightly bigger and have 14 bays per row.
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:agree:


Re cars getting bigger. They all still fit & drive easily within the width of the roads, just as they did 50 yrs ago.
 
They might've been buying an ironing board and the boot latch wasn't working???

But I'd probably park right upto it too!
 
Tell them to buy a roof rack then.:banana::D
 
jockwav said:
Passenger door to driver door,i thought that would be obvvious.:banana:
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Not if you reverse in, because he has driven in, so both your car's "Offside" would be next to each other, leaving you no alternative to exiting via your passenger (nearside) door - except of course if you owned a LHD vehicle.
 
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jockwav said:
I was talking from the right side as seen on the photo,are people thick.:banana::D:D
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If you reversed into that space:oops: :$

Unless your car is LHD of course.

But for most of us we'd have to drive forward into that space like the GTO did in order we could get out of our cars.
 
stryvya said:
Classic example of a car that's now bigger, the Mini.
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Or the Fiat "500"...

jockwav said:
Passenger door to driver door,i thought that would be obvvious.:banana:
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andy700 said:
Not if you reverse in, because he has driven in, so both your car's "Offside" would be next to each other, leaving you no alternative to exiting via your passenger (nearside) door - except of course if you owned a LHD vehicle.
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jockwav said:
I was talking from the right side as seen on the photo,are people thick.:banana::D:D
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Well, if you reversed in next to his drivers door, you would be drivers door to drivers door (unless you have a VERY thin car that could get through the gap between to front corner of the red car and the rear of the pale blue one!)
 
:banana:
 
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So do we.
 
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