You know those people who park just outside the Walmart waiting for whoever they dropped off to come back? Why don’t we give them their own parking spaces?

Think about it … we already have designated parking spots for people with special needs – those with reduced mobility or mothers who are expecting or toting around small children – and obviously those people who blatantly park (and I’m a firm believer parking involves a vehicle not moving for a prolonged period of time, whether the engine is on or off) in areas clearly marked as non-parking areas have some sort of special need (I just haven’t figured it out what it is yet …).

Maybe we need to designate parking spots close to the doors for “People who had to drive their spouses” or “People who refuse to accompany their spouses into the store”. Maybe I’m being too harsh, though. Maybe I need to be more tolerant of drivers who are so considerate of their passengers that they are willing to wait in the car for a prolonged period of time just so their passengers don’t have to push a cart a long way to a parked car.

I don’t mind walking the 50-100 metres to the store door, if I have to (though I, of course, try to find the closes possible non-designated spot) and if my wife or children absolutely have to get to a washroom or if the weather is bad, I’ll drop them off and then park the car. If it’s raining when we come out, I’ll either wait for a lull or I’ll dash to the car and bring it around to the front of the store to load them up.

Maybe drivers such as me deserve a parking spot closer to the door for “People who don’t want to get too wet”; you could put a provision on it where it has to be actually raining and not just threatening to rain; or, you could put moisture sensors so that if the circle turns pink (they have temperature sensors in some parking lots to indicate that if they’re blue, there may be black ice forming), those spots automatically become priority spots for drivers like me.

And you know those spots at the farthest corner of the parking lot – the ones that never get used by anybody except people with shiny new sport compact cars (except at Christmas time) – why don’t we make every other line a dashed line, to let everybody know those spots are meant for “People who need to park diagonally across two spots”.

Parking lots were designed a long time ago for convenience and consideration purposes, and by and large they haven’t really evolved quickly enough with the needs of some drivers. In fact, they seemed to have regressed in some cases, with spots that seem narrower with each new lot. Maybe it’s time we addressed this oversight.

The best parking sign I’ve ever seen was in a cartoon a long time ago. It showed a driveway leading to a split between parking lots. Pointing to the left was a sign that read “Reserved Parking”; to the other, “Parking with reckless abandon”.