Is it ever OK to stand in a park space to hold it for your car?

Parking can be annoying at the best of times but this may be the worst part of it. WATCH THE VIDEO

Do we have a parking problem? Or a people problem?

From suburban streets to shopping centres, parking shortages have been blamed for multiple incidents of citizens behaving badly, even episodes of road rage.

And when it comes to the hottest property in parking, nowhere is more in demand than by the beach, where drivers lose their little minds trying to secure one of these sweet spots.

But I’m not sure that even this temporary insanity excuses the behaviour of one beachgoer who crossed the boundaries of public decency in order to win this parking war.

A video filmed last week captures the moment that a woman uses her body to prevent another vehicle from entering the parking space she has ‘saved’.

As a silver SUV attempts to enter the vacant spot, the woman approaches the driver and waves him on, and he hesitantly drives forward, obviously confused and, no doubt, completely peeved.

The woman then frantically waves and points to another car in the distance, finally ushering a red hatchback into the space for four wheels that she reserved with her two feet, as it just squeezes past the rejected SUV.

Kudos to the SUV driver for keeping his (or her) cool, because that woman was really risking her physical safety in that moment.

To be clear, I am not at all advising that she should have been verbally or physically abused, but worse things have happened for far less reason.

Is it OK to hold a car park?

And with both summer and the dreaded Christmas shopping season fast approaching, meaning parking pandemonium, it’s a timely reminder not to put your life on the line for the sake of a car space.

It’s also a timely reminder to not be an a-hole.

Take this story, found on social media, as your warning:

“A guy was saving a (parking) spot and when I pulled in he completely lost his s**t and kicked my car multiple times. My husband stepped out to get him to calm down and he pushed my husband.

“It ended up in a full-on brawl with my elderly parents (late 60s) trying to pull this 100kg+ man off of my 70kg husband. Mind you his wife and very young kids were just watching him go feral. I ended up kicking him in the balls multiple times to get him off my husband.

“This whole thing probably lasted close to 30 minutes and the people they were saving the spot for didn’t come in that time.”

Like I said, that lady at Burleigh was very lucky.

But in a very scientific survey of my friends and family members, I have yet to find one person who thinks it’s OK to save a parking space with your body.

As one respondent answered: first to smash the indicator wins. And no, your body is not an indicator.

Even the government agrees.

While there isn’t a specific road rule prohibiting pedestrians from reserving a car park by standing in it, under Australian Road Rules number 236, pedestrians “must not cause a traffic hazard by moving into the path of a driver” and/or “must not unreasonably obstruct the path of any driver”.

According to the Department of Transport and Main Roads Queensland, transport legislation provides that a pedestrian creating an unreasonable obstruction could be fined $154.

Unfortunately, there are other questionable parking behaviours where the law is of even less help … like stalking.

It’s perfectly legal to slowly drive behind a pedestrian, creeping behind their ever-quickening walk in the hopes that they will lead you to the perfect parking space which they will soon vacate, but it sure does not feel good. Not as the creeper or the creepee.

Yes, I admit I have been both.

One thing is clear, however. If you are the creepee you have an obligation to tell the creeper if you are not in fact leaving.

Nothing is more infuriating than when I have successfully stalked a shopper to their car space, my indicator is politely blinking, and they then proceed to faff about in the boot for 10 minutes … before walking off with the car still parked in place.

Sociopaths, the (parking) lot of them.

Originally published as Is it ever OK to stand in a park space to hold it for your car?