Drivers fail to stay within parking space
From my desk at home I can see Locust Street in my peripheral vision through the glass door to my balcony. As I see movement on the street I’ll glance over that direction. More often than not when someone parks at the on-street metered space they fail to keep their car behind the parking meter.
When you parallel park sometimes you have no choice but to be off a bit based on the cars in front of and behind your own. But this space I see off to my left is the one space between our drive and the next corner.  Everyone just pulls front-forward into this space. And yet most don’t get it right.
Some cities, such as Clayton, mark on the pavement the allotted space where you are to park.
You can sorta see the parking meter in the above picture.
From the sidewalk you see this driver had nothing to prevent parking properly.
And yet the driver missed it by a long shot. OK, you are right, in this location it doesn’t matter because the city foolishly has too few spaces. At 11am early in the week there are not many cars around. The commercial spaces on the 1st floors are vacant at the moment and on the weekends the street is full, especially if a neighbor is having a party.
This bad habit, repeated daily, makes me wonder if drivers need those pavement markings on the street in order to park properly? But I also think drivers are better at parking naturally. If we had a “pay-n-display” parking system, where the parking space length isn’t pre-determined by the meter spacing, our drivers would do a better job of parking.
In the meantime I’ll just try to resist the urge to leave these drivers a note saying, “Align the meter with the front of the car, not the side mirror.”
– Steve Patterson
Not to mention he/she is pretty far from the curb.
Judging from the model of car this is likely an older person. Still no excuse. Get some bumper stickers from iparklikeanidiot.com.
Definitely a problem, but not endemic to St. Louis, at least: http://badparking.wordpress.com/
One, if they don’t know the rules (or choose to ignore them) for parking at a meter, the odds of paying attention to the painted markings, on the street or in a lot, are pretty slim, as well.
Two, like many other things parking related, it’s a lack-of-enforcement issue – get a few tickets for parking stupidly and you learn; get no tickets and bad behavior is rewarded and will continue.
And three, only slightly related – why does Missouri use yellow painted curbs to indicate no parking areas? Most other states use red paint – it’s much more intuitive and visible!
I did get a ticket for this once. So it is being enforced.
As someone who rarely parks in metered parking, I wouldn’t have known this myself.
Try that in the CWE and they will ticket your car. It does not have to be as egregious as the parking job you posted either.
1) how do you know that when he/parked the car, other cars forced he/she to park like that.
2) You can get away with a lot of things in the city, but don’t park incorrectly. You will get a ticket.
I once received a ticket in Soulard. I parked my car in a spot. The sign had an no parking sign with the arrow pointed north. I parked on the south side of the sign. I came out and had a ticket. Couldn’t figure it out until I walked several car lengths south and realized there was another sign with no parking and the arrow pointing north. I’m sure it was a hot spot for the meter maids. They probably came back to that spot over and over.
That car looks like it was abandoned in the middle of road rather than consciously parked there! ha!
Njenney stated it was probably an older person. Steve responded 40s or 50s at most. Not sure what world you live in, but those ages represent older people. 🙂
Downtown Chicago has changed over to “pay ‘n display” almost everywhere, and I much prefer this system to the old quarter-eaters. First, the machines take a credit card or dollar bills, so you don’t have to carry a bunch of coins. Also, more vehicles can fit into the space allotted (individual spaces are not delineated). It’s $2 an hour in some places, but that’s a bargain compared to off-street lots and garages.
I am embarrassed to admit that I did not know this. I learned to drive in a small town with no meters – maybe thats why. St. Louis is the first place I have driven and parked in with meters. I am guessing others simply do not know also for similar reasons.