Two minutes with Danny Katz: Why no-parking notes are just a protection racket

Q: I park my car in a suburban street close to a local shopping centre while I do my shopping. The spot is under a shady tree in front of a particular house. Last Saturday, I found a note on my windshield asking me not to park there anymore. Are they just protecting their parking spot?
K.B., Highton, Vic

A: Of course they are. We’ve all done it. Glared through our front window at a car parked in front of our home and mumbled, “It’s that car again! In my spot! I should write a note. One day. But for now, I’ll just let that empty parked car feel the wrath of my glare-energy for a solid three minutes. Grrrrrrrr!”

It’s because we feel as if we own those front-of-house parking spots: that’s our disgracefully unmown nature strip, our withered, dying shade-tree, our oil stain on the bitumen from a 2007 Subaru with an anal-leakage problem. Hey, I won’t lie: I’ve been a park-protecting house-jerk myself. The same car used to park in front of my house every time I drove off, even if I was gone for just 10 minutes (I think it was waiting for me to leave, hiding behind a shrub across the street).

Then I’d have to park in front of a neighbour’s house, which meant the neighbour would have to park in front of another neighbour’s house, which meant we wound up with a whole street
of people, glaring out of front windows, thinking, “I should write a note. One day. Meantime … grrrrrr!”

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But what all park-protecting house-jerks need to remember is, any driver can park in any legal spot on any public street – and leaving a note on a windshield is pathetic and ineffectual; it should be ignored.

My park-protecting solution was way more effective: I just stopped leaving my house. I won.

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