Mean “No parking,” Douche.
The Recovery Project moved out of their old diggs at the Livonia YMCA into a new clinic space in Livonia back in July. It’s a nice upgrade; more space, new equipment, no more having to share facilities with the YMCA patrons. However the new clinic shares office space with a medical walk-in clinic, a family practice, an eye doctor, and a pharmacy in an adjacent building. There are five accessible parking spots available in the entire shared parking lot, four in the front near the building's main entrance and one spot sort of hidden around the corner of the building by the employee entrance. What at one time may have been a sufficient number of accessible parking spots before The Recovery Project moved in the office complex is not any longer.
To the casual observer, one accessible parking spot is as good as the next, but the well-initiated knows that certain spots are more desirable than others. In most large parking lots, especially at newer stores/malls, some spots will be marked “van accessible.” This means that the area designated for passenger unloading, by the diagonal lines painted on the ground, will be much wider than that of a typical accessible spot. There are no such spaces in the parking lot at The Recovery Project’s new clinic, but almost every one of their clients (me included) arrives in some sort of accessible van transportation. We are all looking for a parking spot with sufficient room to drop a lift or ramp from the passenger side of their vehicle. In the five accessible spots that are provided in the parking lot there is just enough room available to drop a wheelchair ramp, assuming everyone who needs an accessible spot has properly followed accessible-parking decorum. This is often times not the case and it has quickly become my latest pet peeve.
I very rarely encounter accessible spots occupied by a vehicle that has no right parking in that space. And in that instance, it doesn’t really bother me to find someone parked in a spot where they shouldn’t be parking. I understand a little asshole-ery every now and again. These are usually people who simply just don’t care about their impact on the community-at-large and therefore they’re easy to deal with. I’ll just see their not-caring and raise them a not-caring-if-their-car-door-“accidentally”-gets-all-scratched-up because they’re blocking my spot. No, my biggest parking frustration comes from drivers like the owner of the car in the accompanying picture*.
First of all, why do the parking inept inevitably choose to drive friggin' land yachts like this Caprice Classic? I’m sure the good people of Flint appreciated it back in ’92 when you decided to buy American, but good god, Admiral. If you can’t get the U.S.S. Missouri properly squared up to the moorings out at Pearl, then it’s either time to let the harbor pilot bring her up to the dock, or take a commission on a smaller boat.
Now, on rare occasions these cockamamie parking jobs may have been performed with an actual purpose in mind. In the case above, the intent is to provide the driver with ample space to exit the vehicle without having to navigate over deadly, uneven, hip-shattering curbs. This is often done in scenarios in which two accessible parking spots share a common unloading zone, the left-hand spot being bordered by the aforementioned impassible terrain, and the right-hand spot is already occupied by a whale-like, Town Car-type vehicle. Fine, I understand the rationale – safety first – but the execution of this maneuver has domino effect ramifications that irritate the hell out of me. Here’s why:
I show up to the parking lot in my van, the accessible spaces are full, save for the space that the Town Car has just exited. The parking space to the immediate right of the now-open accessible spot is occupied by another car. Needing room on the right side of my van to drop my exit ramp, I have three options: I can pull up right next to Orville’s crooked car into the space intended for unloading between our two accessible parking spots and drop my ramp into what should be my parking spot (see fig.1 below); I can drive out to the back of the parking lot in B.F.E. and park diagonally across two regular spots, thus guaranteeing myself sufficient room to exit my van; or I can back my van –because I know how to drive – into the open accessible space, positioning the designated unloading zone on the starboard side of my vehicle where it’s needed.
(figure 1.)
Option one alleviates my problem for the time being, but leaves me possibly victim of having a car pull into the vacated open space to my right after I’ve exited my vehicle and folded my ramp back in place. When I return, not only do I run the risk of not having enough room to drop my ramp again, but I’m also now the jerkoff who parks in the way of everyone else. Option two isn’t much better than the first because not only am I blocking two spaces, but it totally defeats the purpose of having close-to-entryway accessible parking privileges. Furthermore, I again look like a complete fool who can’t get his car properly positioned into a parking spot. However, I have resorted to this tactic on numerous occasions when the absolute lack of available accessible parking spaces deems it necessary. At this point, I feel it’s painfully obvious the only acceptable solution is option number three. It’s the only way to meld the goals of helping to achieve some semblance of parking lot order and maintaining my high-minded opinion of myself in comparison to others.
We, the accessible-parking needy, are all in the same boat together and have undoubtedly all experienced a point in time in which our valued accessible parking space has been corrupted by someone else’s poor understanding of their vehicle's spatial footprint or straight-up inability to park. Therefore, with the frustration of that experience stored in the brain, it makes no sense, if only in the self-serving interest of preserving one’s own sanity, to perpetuate that same behavior.
I’m glad we cleared that up. Now move your stupid car because you're f'n it up for the rest of us.
*for the record, the driver of the Caprice was a nice, slow-moving, old lady that said "hi" to me as I left. As far as I know, she is not a douche.
