Parking is a fine art. There are a lot of things that you can mess up and if you’ve ever been in a road scuffle, you know the horrible sinking feeling when you hear that disproportionately loud bumper-on-bumper bang.
But sometimes, people are far too quick to judge the parking skills of others. Because, you know, people standing around and mutely waving their hands around is always helpful when you’re trying to take in your surroundings in a 2-ton tank. Today we’ll take a look at a woman’s story of beefing with her neighbors over her destructive parking skills.
More info: Reddit
If a neighbor erects a garden right in your parking spot, they should at least have the common sense not to get mad when it's run over
Image credits: Will Keightley (not the actual photo)
The poster came to the AITA subreddit to be judged if she's a jerk for driving over a botanical project, flowers, which were planted in her driveway
Image credits: West_Fix_49
Image credits: m-louis .® (not the actual photo)
The poster bought a new, bigger car, and while she tried to avoid the neighbor's plants, she kept destroying them again and again
Image credits: West_Fix_49
Image credits: Kim Love (not the actual photo)
This sparked a conflict between the neighbors and the poster even suggested to swap parking spots with them, but they refused
Image credits: West_Fix_49
When people saw that the poster was struggling with parking a bigger car, many of them pounced on her, bashing her for being a bad driver
The whole situation is quite easy to understand, but quite hard to grasp visually. But this Reddit comment may help you visualize the parking situation. The original poster (OP) also attempted to draw the parking spots and the garden, but you can see how that panned out in her own comment.
A lot of people bashed the OP for her parking and driving skills, but it seems as if the whole issue is with the fact that no matter what, the plants were still planted in the driveway. And there simply have to be better places to put a botanical project rather than in a driveway?
Apparently they’re growing marigolds and trying to see how conditions like sunlight, water, and soil affect the plants’ growth, which is likely super convenient to attempt to do on gridded concrete. Here’s how these concrete grass pavers look, if you’re having trouble imagining them.
But here’s the thing, just because grass grows there, they’re still part of the driveway. These kinds of pavers are quite popular as a less brutalist and boringly gray driveway option, especially for parking in small apartment or cottage neighborhoods.
Can you also imagine being the kid? The OP drove over the project a total of four times. What are the parents doing? Are they just setting it up over and over again, saying “it’s okay, honey, I’m certain the neighbor lady won’t bulldoze your plants for the fifth time in a row.”
Perhaps the flowers are quite resilient and can stand up to being run over by a BMW GT, but I just don’t see why wouldn’t you start looking for a better spot for your kiddo’s project, oh, I don’t know, after the 3rd time?
Image credits: nakhon100 (not the actual photo)
All in all, this led to OP catching a whole lot of flak about her being an awful driver. In her defense, 7 years of driving without any accidents at all is no small feat. According to her, she’s done it by simply learning the cars she drives well.
In the post and several comments, the poster mentions that she’s even taken some refresher parking lessons with an instructor to make the transition of getting used to a new car easier.
When people found this out, even more people pounced on her, with accusations of “bad driver” and even saying that she’s putting people at risk (somehow).
But people who will watch over what you’re doing and comment about it, especially when they could really be minding their own business, are everywhere. There’s even an Italian term “Umarell” for senior retired men who spend their free time with their hands clasped behind their back, watching construction sites, at times offering unsolicited and unwanted advice.
Nevertheless, lots of schools offer refresher driver lessons. For example, according to Holt's, a car maintenance manufacturer and distributor with more than 100 years of history, there are loads of reasons why refresher driving lessons could be the thing for you.
If you’ve started driving after a long gap, need more confidence driving alone, had an accident, or need more experience driving in certain conditions, you could go for refresher lessons.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to refresh your skills for any reason, especially if you feel that you’re lacking in some area. Dudebros will tell you that you’re incompetent or a risk to others, but there is a certain association of driving skill to masculinity and very closely tied some people’s sense of worth, so choose what you listen to out there.
The original post collected 4.2k upvotes with a 94% upvote ratio and a total of 1.1k comments to boot. It was a polarizing story, as there are many “you’re the buttface” replies, but the poster was judged as a non-jerkhole in the end.
Share your thoughts about the story below!
Despite the "bad driver" accusations, the community judged the poster not to be a jerk
Image credits: Stephen Harris (not the actual photo)
