Parking in December can be a total nightmare - whether you're Christmas shopping or visiting relatives. When you're patiently waiting for someone to leave a car parking space, however, you don't expect somebody to drive over and try to intimidate you away from the space - especially when you've got your baby in the car and you're in a hospital car park.
This happened to one new mum, however, and she took to Mumsnet to express her horror at what one angry driver did her after she'd parked in the space she was waiting for. He tried to claim that it was hit in a rather aggressive manner, which left the mum shaken.
She wrote: "So I had an altercation at the hospital this morning in the car park with a man. It's a community hospital if that makes a difference (so nobody there is in a life or death situation, they only have minor injuries, outpatients, physio and scans, etc) with a tiny car park which is almost always full.
"There are no arrows on the floor anymore so it's a bit of a free for all, but the 'aisles' are wide enough for 2 cars and so the general consensus seems to be you all drive around at random and then it's basically pot luck as to who happens to be near a space when it becomes empty, like a really dull and fuel wasting game of musical chairs.
"I'd been driving round for about 10 minutes when as I got to the end of an aisle, I saw a mum and child approaching their car in the space. I was perpendicular to it, so I reversed back out of their way and put my indicator on to signal I was going to pull in when they left.
Have you ever had a parking nightmare? Let us know in the comments...
"Another car appeared at the other side of them and pointed at the space in what I thought was an 'are you going in there' fashion so I signalled/mouthed yes I am, but he didn't move. The car pulled out and I pulled in, and the man jumped out and ran over to my car telling me that was his space."
The man then got aggressive in his behaviour, trying to explain why it was 'his space', and not the space of the woman who parked there.
She continued: "He said that he'd followed them as he came in the entrance round to their space and that therefore it's his space. I pointed out that I had also seen them coming and was by the car and was already indicating for the space before he even came into my view and so was entitled to park there (obviously if he had been in view and indicating to the space already I would have been unreasonable to push into it first, but that wasn't the case).
"He started shouting why did I think that the rules didn't apply to me and that it didn't matter I'd been there longer, I deliberately didn't raise my voice but simply stated there are no 'rules' and I was entitled to park there, he then changed tact to yelling 'move your car' at me which I replied once to say no, he then started saying 'well you might find your car blocked in when you come back ' by this time I was unloading my bag out the car and just said if that was the case I would get the security team involved when I returned to my car.
"I was shaking a bit at this point as felt quite vulnerable with my young baby in the back of the car too but focused on not raising my voice or escalating the situation, and when it became apparent I wasn't moving (or he saw me get the buggy out, not sure which) he eventually got back in his car and continued driving round with everyone else. When I came back to the car after my appointment he was parked a few cars down.
"I'm now wondering though if I was unreasonable and while I know there are no enforceable rules, have I broken car park etiquette? Surely if it was a thing that you followed people from the entrance, everyone would wait at the entrance to the car park and then drive in when they had a returner to follow?!
"Obviously if I had seen him waiting or he was already stationary when I got there it would have been different, but I also saw them returning to the car and was there first, even if I had seen him making his way to the space it would have been impossible to know that's where he was heading and not the exit from another space."
In the comments, people were horrified at the man's behaviour, with many saying that he was being unfair and trying to make her submit and give her parking space to him.
One wrote: "The man was a d*** and trying to intimidate you. Chances are if you had been a 6ft5 man he wouldn't have said a thing. You handled it well I think."
Someone else agreed, commenting: "Well you'd been there first and had been driving around longer than him so no, you weren't in the wrong."
One Mumsnetter said: "Good for you standing your ground, he's a nasty man who thinks he can tell women what to do. Absolutely 100% he wouldn't have tried it with a man.
"I had someone try similar with me, when me and my mother got out of the car in a perfectly synchronised manoeuvre to ask his problem he quickly scuttled off."
What would you have done in this situation? Let us know in the comments.
