Life 202: Driveways

Posted by Johnny at 11:25 a.m.

This is a rant that's been coming for a while. It will be brief, but intense.

LEARN DRIVEWAY ETIQUETTE. NOW.

(This is directed at my mom's clients who are making drop-offs and pick-ups at my house during the rush hours.)

Here's something you may not have known: When you park in front of a single width driveway, it prevents people who are already on the driveway from exiting the driveway. This may be desirable when said persons with cars on the driveway are trying to get to work and have to wait for you to exit your minivan, make the drop off, get back in the minivan, and move the minivan.

Similarly, when people who have a justified use for the driveway need to put their car back on the driveway, it's difficult to do that when a minivan is blocking the entrance to the driveway. Not to mention that the minivan's driver takes forever to return to the minivan because they fail to see the person trying to enter the driveway. Then it takes an additional forever to load the cargo back into the minivan, at which point, after 2 forevers have passed, the driver trying to enter the driveway can finally achieve his goal.

Here's another fact: A partially blocked driveway is still a blocked driveway. The last time I checked, no one at my house owns a motorbike, nor does anyone ride a bicycle to work. So why couldn't you move your fucking minivan another 4 feet forward so that I can fit my fucking Toyota past the fucking minivan? GOD DAMN IT!

Why would anyone park halfway blocking the driveway and halfway not?!?! How does that make any sense?! Are you trying to save gas? Let's figure out how much money you're saving by not driving an extra 4 feet. If you're minivan gets 13.4L/100km in the city and you are saving a distance of 1.5m by blocking my car, you are saving 0.000201 L of gas. Assuming an average pump price of $0.90/L, that means you just saved yourself $0.00018. Holy fucking shit! That was clearly worth it.

I'm not stereotyping, but the data I've collected on this subject indicates that the worst offenders of driveway inettiquette are soccer mom types with minivans. Soccer dads have offended as well, but it is not as frequently. When the dads do it, they fucking giv'er by actually parking right next to the door on the driveway.

One final thing before I conclude this rant. If you're backing your minivan out of a single-width driveway, as in Figure 1, and there is a parked car that you have to drive around so that you don't hit the car parked across the street, try turning the fucking steering wheel while you back out. Otherwise, you'll hit the car parked across the street and be called an idiot by me for as long as you live, which probably won't be very much longer given your driving abilities.

Figure 1: Backing Out

As you can see, the green lines show the correct path, while the red lines show the incorrect path.

Life is hard, isn't it?