Put it and keep it between the lines!
Question – how hard is it to keep your vehicle between the lines? I’m asking because it seems more and more folks are ignoring parking lines. Well, I’m here to tell you they are not optional! So here’s your lesson – when you pull into a parking space, make sure that you are centered between the two lines. Do you think you can remember that? It’s pretty simple, yet I inevitably see 10 – 15 violations of this simple common courtesy every week.
Let’s ad fuel to the fire, or in this case an unreasonable amount of snow. Where do you stack all the snow? It has to go somewhere and that usually means there is a reduced amount of parking availability – making it doubly important to put that jalopy you drive around between the lines! Clearly this is an issue for me; I’m a person who believes in the common practice of courtesy. So when you take your big fat stinkin’ SUV and somehow manage to take up a football field sized piece of real estate with it, well you’ll forgive me for wanting to figure out how to set it a blaze. And it’s not that I’ve got anything against the SUV, I own one myself. But guess what? I’m able to place it between the lines. I won’t make any bones about it, if I feel that I’m too close to the person next to me, I will back up and try to give them more room – it’s just how I roll.
The other day I pulled into my gym parking lot, snow has consumed thirty percent of the parking so at a busy time parking is at a premium. Yet when I pulled into the parking lot the other day, there is was – the clearest violation of not parking between the lines. This tiny Japanese sedan was centered directly over a line taking up two spaces! Nothing frosts my cookies more than that. Countless parking spaces chewed up by Mother Nature and now some “I park like an Idiot” award recipient takes up two spots! Common courtesy – that’s all I’m asking for! It’s all I want you to consider prior to running into the gym and hopping on the elliptical trainer before you start your grueling session of texting and talking on the phone while never breaking a sweat!
And while I’m on the subject of keeping it between the lines, can we discuss for a minute highway driving during a storm? SLOW DOWN!!!! It really doesn’t take much more than that, again a pretty simple rule – one that is not even difficult to remember. We drove down to New York to get our Grandson during the height of the Friday Snow storm, and by simply keeping my speed right around 40 miles per hour I’m able to tell you that it can be done! Yet every Chachie with an SUV or some vehicle engineered by Swedes thinks that the rule of “Slow Down” doesn’t apply to them. Now, I’m not a mean person, I don’t wish anyone any harm – but every time I see someone in the middle of the medium I derive some twisted pleasure from it. I’m not talking about the person that is just off the road, I’m talking 40 feet deep into the medium. The kind of deep you can only achieve if you drive around the highways during a snow storm with your head stuffed so far up your…, well let’s just say – a feeling of invincibility.
How about State Troopers? They log about 200 miles during a snow storm in rear wheel drive vehicles going from accident to accident. How do you think they stay on the road? Nope, it’s not magic State Police powers; it’s driving according to roads conditions. Oh, and common courtesy for your fellow driver.
I get things will happen, I’m not judging. I’m simply saying pay attention to the lines; they are there for a reason. That reason, is to keep your vehicle between them! It’s pretty simple. But if you’re the kind of a driver that swerves to miss a tree only to discover it’s you air freshener – please turn your license in! What the hell is up with that?
