fuenfer

Why are people so inconsiderate of other people's property?

Driving around a parking lot, you notice that many, many cars have door dings. Many, many years ago in high school, I accidentally opened my door on my friend's car -- it made contact, but it didn't leave a dent. Intrigued, my friend and I (he didn't care, because his car was an old Volvo beater -- early 80's model, IIRC) decided to see how hard one would have to hit a door to create a door ding. So, I tried to open my door harder and harder on his beater to see what it would take to create a door ding. Try as we might (maybe it was just the inherent respect for cars that I have got in the way), we couldn't create a door ding. We concluded that creating a door ding takes either a) super-hard hit on the door created by flinging the door open violently and with the necessary scienter to create a door ding or b) opening the door then leaning on it with great pressure against the other door. This experiment was confirmed over a decade and a half later when I was sitting in a cab in Manhattan traffic, when two extremely inconsiderate people got out of the cab next to mine -- and slammed their door open on the cab that I was in, without leaving ding. Either way, I concluded that it's not a simple "accident" that create door dings, but instead, is created by either malicious, purposeful intent, or by gross negligence. So why do so many of our cars have those little dings? Why do people so maliciously do such things?! And I don't think it's just "jealousy" either, because my girlfriend's beater Civic has plenty of dings of its own.

On Friday, I went to a Fort Lee restaurant with my family and parked my 545i on the street. My car is garage parked, and I do everything I can to keep it pristine, including strategically parking my car so as to minimize the risk of getting hit. Even then, I've already had some jackass scrape up my bumper, which I had repainted. Anyway, I picked a metered spot on the street, the first one on the street so that nobody would hit my bumper from behind while pulling out. I can't tell you the number of times my bumper's been scuffed, or worse yet, had an incompetent SUV driver take out a taillight back in college. Anyway, while I was coming out of dinner, two young ladies decided that it would be a great idea to park behind my car, notwithstanding the fact that their car would a) only barely clear the intersection and b) they would not be in a proper spot and would get a ticket from the vicious Fort Lee constabulatory agency. Knowing that they could barely park there, they kept inching forward and forward -- in a panic, I ran across the street to my car and unlocked the doors to flash the parking lights. I saw them brake hard when they saw the parking lights flash, and when I got to my car, they were literally an inch and a half off my rear bumper. The girl then stuck her head out the window, full of verve and bad attitude, and yelled, "I didn't hit your car!" I replied, "Yeah, but you were about to." I got my car out of there as soon as possible. I wonder how she would've felt if I were about to take a nice gouge out of one of her treasured possessions.

Finally, I was driving on the NY Thruway one day, in the middle lane. An Econoline van was sitting in the left lane, a bit ahead of me, basically being a left lane bandit. A white Mustang pulled up smartly behind the Econoline, and while he was a good distance off, flashed his headlights on the van. I backed off a bit to allow the van to move over, but instead of moving over to the right, as soon as the Mustang had closed in on him, the van went onto the left-side breakdown lane. At first, I thought the van had a drunken driver, and I had a moment of sheer terror, wondering what this guy would do next -- thus, I further slowed behind the van and the 'stang. But then I realized, the van had moved over to the breakdown lane to kick up all the rocks and dust -- which basically hit the Mustang, and some of which ended up hitting my car, too -- leaving a chip on my hood. Even if the van felt offended somehow, notwithstanding the fact that it shouldn't have been a left-lane bandit anyway, why did he have to do what he could to hurt the Mustang? And leave my car with collateral damage? A younger-me would've chased this guy down and confronted him, but as an older, wiser guy, all I could do was think about how terrible people are to each other, shake my head, and take my exit. The mustang, on the other, didn't appear to have such charitable thoughts.

Anyway, I just wanted to get this off my chest, so thanks for listening/reading. It's truly unfortunate that people are so damned inconsiderate.

530E60NL

I drive a lot of kms and I see sooo many people who are intolarate to eachother and get into dangerous situations without any need.

I think you are the one that is the most grown up. Even if you chased the guy down the chip would still be on your hood. You defenately did the right thing in this situation...

for you!

Jimbo

The U.S. has as many incondsiderate drivers. No blinkers used, cutting you off when there's no one behind you, running red lights, tailgaiting, door dings, keying, throwing trash, etc.

Keeping one's ride nice is always a battle.

fuenfer

I agree in toto that it's a battle. Especially in the NYC tri-state area.

After having penned this post yesterday, I came out this morning to find that my girlfriend's Civic had been involved in a nice little hit-and-run. I know it happened overnight because I washed her car last night, and there was no damage to it then -- when my girlfriend first noticed the damage, she pointed it out to me to tell me that I'd done a bad job of washing the car. She was parked in the visitor's lot at my condo in northern Jersey. It looked as if someone was going into or leaving the spot next to the Civic and had underestimated the remaining space available. Thus, there's a nice ding/gash in her driver's side rear door. My girlfriend, being the innocent that she is, was perplexed that the perpetrator hadn't left a note.

Unbelievable.

skaffa

These people who always seem to think they are right, what ver they do, can not stand any comments about they behaviour. But rage you get from them.

Skaffa