Safe Speed Forums

Some one started a thread on carparks recently - how about giving this some thought?

Are spaces in car parks wide enough, to stop damage from opening doors.How many drivers would choose a car park with wider spaces if they could to stop "door opening damage"

To prevent any possibility of damage from opening doors, the typical space would have to be about three feet wider, which would be very wasteful of room.

It's certainly the case, though, that the typical car is about six inches wider than its equivalent from 20 years ago, so a lot of spaces that were OK then are pretty cramped now.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

My thoughts was that since the average car is wider, the trend for the average driver according to figures is that we're also getting bigger ,and the space is still the same that we're seeing a lot more damage due to thoughtless people that the physical act of parking is becoming second place to the choice of space to try and minimise/stop damage. Seems yet another case especially when the parks refuse liability of tough luck.
I for one try to avoid multis like the plague, and if forced to do so use the furtherest corner .
Any other suggestions?

It's a pain when you've got a 2 or 3 door car since the doors are invariably longer than the 4/5 door equivalent model. We try to use Mrs Gatsobait's car most of the time, otherwise it means parking as far away as possible to get a space on both sides of the car.

Have kids so you can use the parent and baby spaces? Well, any excuse for a bit of ...

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Couldn't get away with the parent and toddler idea, ours only toddle on nights out.Do take the grandkids or one when problems are likely to happen. But, the carparks can make spaces for people with kids , we've got spaces for disabled, these are all much wider, why can't they as a good will gesture to motorists make the average space wider? would they lose any customers or perhaps gain those that won't use them for fear of damage , i'm thinking particularly of the supermarket chains, where most of the damage occurs.

I couldn't believe the palaver I went through in one multi-storey the other day. The parking spaces are grouped in sets of three between the pillars that support the floor above. Now, when parking nose first, the left-hand pillar forced me over to the right-hand edge of the parking space, which meant that I couldn't get out of my car if anyone was parked in the middle space. So, having parked and then found that out, I drove out of the space and reversed in, so that I could get out of the car into the space behind the pillar. Now, I could get out of the car, but then I couldn't squeeze between my car (or the one next door) and that wretched pillar. On the other side of the set of three spaces, the pillar stopped me opening my door when I parked nose-first, and forced me over against the car in the middle space so that I still couldn't open my door after I reversed in.

What a nightmare -- I ended up driving up three floors and past tens of empty parking spaces before finding somewhere with a vacant "middle" space. The multi-storey existed in the early seventies, so it was probably adequate in its day.

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Will

Sounds just like the one here in Kendal. My theory is that when the car park was built there were two spaces between each pair of pillars, but since then they got greedy...

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Wouldn't happen to have been in Wakefield would it?

The old Alms House Lane car park is very much like this, and it does annoy a lot of people. However if you move just a little closer to the wall in front, the doors open a dream.

However I agree with what is being said here. The spaces are definitely getting smaller. My manager at work has resorted to parking his Merc diagonally across two spaces, to prevent having his doors and wings smashed by inconsiderate or overweight motorists trying to squeeze in and out of their cars.

Er, no, that's like saying "medium size clothes are getting smaller"

The car park spaces are almost certainly the same size they were when the car park was opened - what has happened is that the cars, like people's waistlines, have got bigger. If you look at the dimensions, even small cars are much wider than they were 20 years ago.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I'm sorry, but that doesn't explain what is visibly present in the Wakefield multi-storey car park. The original space markings have been painted over in black paint, and then smaller spaces have been marked out in place of the existing ones, just like JT said.

There is also evidence that this has been occurring in various other car parks around the area, with the primary evidence either being blacked-out lines, or marks where the original paint has been burned away.

The Train Station parking at the NEC is the worst I have ever found. You almost need to climb out the sun roof...

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Speed camera policy Kills

It varies greatly. Our office was an old school and the car park is what was the old playground and some spaces are squeezed around the edges of the site. Some spaces are several feet shorter than the average spaces, while the others in the main area are huuuge in comparison.

I visited Gunwharf in Portsmouth a few weeks ago and there are two spaces between each pillar, but the spaces are just a tad too small really. I suspect the architectural-cost concerns come above parking but if they had been a bit wider it would be great.

I drive a yank Chevy Caprice (6' 5" x 17' 10") so I need to take care!

Gareth

You need to go south of the Mason-Dixon Line. You get red-neck parking there. Enough room to unload the deer kill out of a Duely....

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Speed camera policy Kills

Another problem is the width of the lane between two rows of spaces. Having a narrow space to park wouldn't be so bad if you had enough room in front of the space to straighten up and get aligned with the space, but some car parks are so tight on space all round that getting in or out of a space can end up being a case of forwards a bit... backwards a bit... forwards a bit... backwards... And then you get some prat giving you a dose of fullbeam or horn just because you have the nerve to block the lane for more than the 25 microseconds they seem to think is the absolute maximum time it should take anyone to park - these are, of course, the same prats who'll then take up two spaces with their chavved up supermini, which could still comfortably fit within a single space even with the addition of all its tacky bodykit protrusions, because they can't be arsed to straighten up or take note of where the white lines are

As far as old multi-storeys go, how long will it be before the average family car is too big to fit around the ramps? Especially the ones which have pedestrian barriers sticking out at both ends, forcing you to swing out further before turning in order to avoid scraping one side of the car against the barrier, only to then be faced with the prospect of smacking the front end into the wall on the other side of the ramp...

On a related issue, has anyone else encountered car parks where they've reduced the number of spaces by changing a whole load of normal spaces into wider ones for another purpose? Okay, I understand that older car parks may not have had disabled spaces originally, and it seems pretty reasonable to lose a few spaces overall to have them put in. No problem with that at all. On the other hand my local supermarket has done this to create many more parent+child spaces, and by doing so lost three normal space for each pair of new parent+child spaces created. Fair enough if there was a genuine need for it, but to begin half the new spaces were empty which suggests that they overdid it some. More recently it's become a free for all with people parking there regardless of whether they've got kids with them. The supermarket has only been there for ten years or so and the car park had (IMO) disabled and parent+child spaces when it opened. There are always a few spaces in the disabled section in spite of the small numbers of obviously non-disabled people who use it as well, but the parent+child bit is a puzzle. Half an hour after scholl chucking out time the place is full, and even with the increased parent+child spaces there's nowhere near enough. Go later in the evening and the spaces are full yet there's no kids inside the shop. Draw your own conclusions.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Yes, agree with all this too! There is a small multi-storey in Portsmouth (Waitrose Southsea) that I haven't attempted in the Caprice yet - it has incredibly short and narrow ramps and you can tell that "normal" cars have problems by the size of the "bumper graze" on the walls. It is quite wide but I have been in a lot of car parks where you need to shunt to get out.

Gareth

Been there, done that (much to my embarrassment) when a few years ago I got stuck in one. There was a very sharp, narrow bend about four car-lengths into the multi-storey that I couldn't get my Volvo 740 around. My offside front and rear corners were up against barriers on the outside of the bend and my nearside sill was about to graunch on a pillar. The parking attendant was really peeved when he had to get half a dozen cars to back up so that I could reverse out

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Will

On the subject of parent and child spaces. Why are they always so close to the store front. All I am bothered about is having space to open the door wide enough to easily lift the toddler out and park the pushchair alongside. The space could be at the far end of the carpark as long as there is a half decent footpath.

Which is another gripe of mine, massive carparks with no thought to how people are going to get from car to door. Owlcotes and white rose centre's in Leeds are a fine example of how not to design car parking.

OT a bit, sorry...

I remember many (20+) years ago parking my 1983 Accord in the Chelmsford multi-story. I was following all the way up the helterskelter one of the old shaped Granadas - three box 3 litre jobs. At each bend he was either power sliding or, more likely, handbrake jabbing.

I thought he was showing off at first, but having seen just how tight it is in my newer Accord, it may have been his easiest option!