After all that neighbourly togetherness on Saturday, it was almost a moment of footpath rage yesterday.
One of my pet hates is cars parked across footpaths. So when I saw one such a car while we were walking down to the library, I made a point of walking around it by going via the offending house’s driveway, while silently fuming.
Half-an-hour later on the way back, it was still there. A lady was on the porch, so I called out that they should move it; that if a parking inspector came past (very unlikely!) they’d get fined. She said it wasn’t her car. I said it was a pretty dumb place to park.
I shouldn’t have said that, particularly with the kids present. There are nicer ways to express it, and I don’t want to teach them to be automatically agro in such situations. It’s not always healthy.
I pondered if they’d plan some kind of revenge on me for that, before realising I’d been watching too much Sopranos recently, as well as reading in the paper about road rage incidents.
10 replies on “Footpath rage”
Daniel
good on you for expressing your annoyance! What you said about the parking fine is true (in theory at least).
I couldn’t agree more – it happens occassionally in our neighbourhood. It is selfish, unnecessary and dangerous. Unfortunately most perpetrators couldn’t give a rats’ …
Rog.
If I’m busting, stumbling home drunk from the pub, and there’s a handy toilet in the middle of the footpath, is it my fault?
Across the footpath? Annoying, yes, but not as annoying as having your neighbour’s visitor (early twenties P-plater) park their car in your driveway so you can’t even get out of your own property!
A quick trip next door and a few choice words to the offending car owner got it sorted; but really, common sense would say the car should never have been parked there in the first place.
I really can’t work out if its arrogance, ignorance, rudeness or just plain stupidity.
Yeah, that is uncalled for. It’s like the people who never pay attention to the traffic and pull right up to the people ahead of them in intersections. Therefore when the light turns red, the opposite direction is blocked from moving! Really dumb move and so self-centred. It’s like these people can’t think or look or feel beyond 3 inches past their own nose!
Maybe you’re right Daniel about not speaking up, but then again, maybe you’re wrong. Perhaps it is good for the boys to see some rightful indignance. After all, the rules are there, correct? So, we should be following them, shouldn’t we? Isn’t that what civilized people are supposed to do, after all?
That is so annoying! I walk with a pram and it makes it really difficult to get around when people park like this. When I don’t have the pram, like you I walk on their property to get around the car.
And BTW what sort of response is that: It’s not my car. Well that was just silly, she could have simply apologised and said she’d ask the driver to move it.
Yes, couldn’t agree more, too bad if you’re in a wheelchair or one of those scooter thingys (often a menace themselves in the wrong hands) where you can’t simply walk around.
Then there are the drivers who forget that they must give way to pedestrians when turning into driveways. This happens all the time in the street where I work.
Yeah, I had a similar situation here. In Japan, parking really comes at a premium, so people often park on the footpaths. This turkey, however, had parked across a very busy footpath. Now, in Japan people also cycle (legally!) along footpaths, and this was a high-cycle area. There was no one to yell at and I just decided to let it ride (along with myself). :)
Ah so you have car on footpath rage. Over here in Moonee Ponds its much more severe. BIN RAGE!!!
We got into a fight (would have been physical if the guy wasn’t screaming at us from his balcony).
Crazy stuff. We ended up going to the police about it!
If it wasn’t her car why was it parked in her driveway
thank god it wasnt a 4wd, with that rage who knows what you might have done :)