Part A: How to avoid dings and dents in the parking lot
Alright, this one’s a two-parter.
The premise here is that you don’t want to discover any mysterious dings or dents in your car when you come back out from the restaurant or store, or wherever you are. That’s a pretty safe assumption, right? But how far will you go to prevent that from happening?
Here are a couple precautions you can take, and pretty soon your awareness of these factors will be second nature…
- If there is limited space (i.e. the parking spaces aren’t very wide), park a little closer to the car on your left than the one on your right. The reasoning here is that you are guaranteed that there will be a person getting into the driver-side of the cars on either side of you when they return. However, there is a lesser chance of a passenger getting in the car. Thus, there is less chance of a passenger door hitting your car than a driver’s side door. Now, there are exceptions to this of course. For instance, if both cars on either side of you aren’t facing the same direction as you, then this doesn’t work. If you’re in the UK or Japan, then you’ll obviously want to park closer to the right than the left. And, getting even more abstract, though there is a lesser chance of the cars on either side of you having a passenger, there is a greater chance that the passenger will be a child or someone less aware of their surroundings (afterall, it most likely isn’t the passenger’s car, so they’ll probably be less concerned with dinging the door into something).
- Park next to or between cars more expensive than your own if at all possible. They’ll have much more to lose by dinging you than you will by being dinged.
- Park next to minivans. Their back doors (usually where the kids get in and out) slide back instead of opening outward. Likewise, try parking next to Lamborghini’s, 1955 Mercedes Gullwing 300SL Coupes, and posers driving garish Civics sporting Lambo-style doors.
"Lambo" Doors
- Park in the end spots. One less car beside you means one less chance of dings. On the other hand, if you in an end spot with no side curb, you’re open to the elements. Maybe you’d be better off having a barrier of other cars on either side of you. Use your best judgment.
- Park away from shopping cart corales. People often miss. If on a slope, park uphill any stray carts or corales (make gravity your ally, not your enemy… gravity has been around a long time, it knows how to win a fight).
- And if you’re really adamant about not getting dings, do as my best friend, Eric does. Park in BFE.
Park in BFE
- BONUS: Don’t double park to give yourself more room. If you do, you’re basically saying, “Hey, I care about material things like my car, even at the expense of consideration for others. In fact, the only thing I like more is the irony that by double parking, I’m making everyone else actually want to go out of their way to hit my car.”
NEXT TOPIC: Part B: What do you do if you get a dent of ding?