A little amusing reverse culture shock for you. First of all I had gotten used to driving on Russian roads and the mentality of Russian drivers. Then we spent 3 months in Australia. Melody had a laugh at me on at least a few occasions there when I drove like a Russian; i.e took gaps that no one else did. In my defence it seemed that everyone there was driving in slow motion. Now we're back to the land of crazy drivers and we are the ones getting amused by driving behaviour.
It's a little hard to photograph people driving but I decided to snap some shots in a shopping centre car park to illustrate the difference in world view. Over the winter as we visited the Planeta shopping centre we observed how people were parking their cars. Essentially people will park their cars anywhere and everywhere that they can find a spot. This is often not helped that there is not enough parking in general in the city.
When the ground is covered in snow there are no lines to indicate where to park and where not to. So parking in the winter gets extremely creative. Where there would be a road to drive around the car park, people are parked instead. Therefore if you enter a row and it is full, you will have to reverse out of there instead of continuing through a circle. In the summer, there are lines on the road. Perhaps this brings some order to things? Well, a little.
Let's take a look.
1) You can see the double line to the right, this marks the boundary of where you can park. (Of course a concrete barrier would help some what more.) This car is parked in the middle of the car park road.
2) The Porsche is also parked on the "road". If you look to the right and a bit further down you will see a Hyundai. (The next photo is a close up.)
3) This same Hyundai is also parked on the road, as is the car in front of it. So if you want to drive through here you will need to weave in and out of the cars parked on the road.
4) This car is obviously not parked in a marked bay. But the other cars can still get around it, so what's the big deal?!
5) There's lots of room for the cars to the left to get out, but why wouldn't they take the parking bay available?
6) This one has to take the cake. The cream coloured Lada to the left can still find a way to wangle out, but seriously? (The white car is NOT moving, it does NOT have a person in it, it is PARKED.)
7) The entire left lane of the road in this part of the car park is occupied.
So, the golden rule when parking is to never block anyone in. There seems to be no rules about blocking traffic though. We have seen an entire street that is normally narrow enough for two cars to pass each other, with cars parked all down one side. This means that if two cars face each other, one will have to reverse out first to let the other through. We have seen streets closed off by businesses with chains put up to create their own private parking spaces. Really, almost anything goes, and there is no such thing as a parking ticket.
You might ask if I have ever been blocked in? Well one time when I parked there appeared to be plenty of room to get out. Later when I came back to the car and tried to leave I had just centimetres of clearance on either side. I'm not sure if that qualifies as breaking the golden rule or not. It sure felt that way.
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