Snow Storm Parking Wars

Posted by: Noël Jones


We've been hit by several snow and ice storms in succession now, and what initially brings out the nice side of human nature (neighbors shoveling a few inches of pretty white snow, waving and griping in solidarity) now has begun to bring out our dark sides over differences in perspective on what proper snow removal is, and what the parking rules are.


The written parking rules are clear: all spots on public streets are available to any driver who desires to park, regardless who lives in the houses on a given street. But the unwritten parking code among neighbors is more ambiguous. Residents commonly feel that if they have done the hour of shoveling that it takes to get one's car out after the city snow plow has come through and buried it, that they should be entitled to saving that parking space for themselves when they get back. Sometimes they try to save their spaces by putting chairs or trash cans out in the street to mark the spots in front of their houses until they get home. Sometimes neighbors honor that, sometimes they don't. 


A couple of situations came up today that illustrate how these parking wars take place. In one case,
a resident paid another neighbor to dig out her car, and then, because she lives on a hill where people do not shovel out properly and she has great difficulty getting out of a snowy spot in the morning, she asked her neighbor, who has a habit of parking a few of his large vehicles right in front of her house, to please not park there since she had paid someone so that she would be able to park when she got back. He informed her that he planned to move into that spot as soon as she left. Not nice, but legal.


Across the street from my house today, an angry youth began digging his car out after the plow had buried it up to the windows. He was understandably frustrated, but unfortunately began shoveling all the snow back into the middle of the street that had just been plowed. As the piles began to accumulate in the middle of the road, I went out and said, as nicely as I could, "you're going to move that snow to the curb, right?" To which he answered in a very snotty voice, "we'll see about that," and kept shoveling snow into the street. I said, "you know that you can't do that right, that it's illegal to dump a bunch of snow in the street for everyone else to drive over?" To which he answered, "it's fine! They'll push it down!" To which I replied, "they just cleaned the streets so that residents won't have to drive through the snow, and you're dumping it back on the street instead of taking a few steps to the curb with it." He said, "so what, call the cops!" 


So I did. A ridiculous waste of an officer's time, in my opinion, but when a neighbor is intent on being a self-absorbed jerk with no respect for his neighbors and actually tells me to call the police when I am trying to work it out neighbor-to-neighbor, then I'm afraid I have to make that call. A few minutes later an officer came by, the kid vented his frustration at the plow having buried his car, and the officer seemed sympathetic but told him he needs to remove the snow to the curb, not to the middle of the street, which he did. 


On a brighter note, I had enjoyed a rousing round of back spasms for a couple of days, and was dreading shoveling around my corner property. Two neighbors boys stopped by and offered to do it for me, and for the first time in four winters, I didn't turn them away, and everyone was happy.


What's your snow story/parking story? At least we didn't get the 19" that New York got.