Author: Carl Page 1 of 151

I left my house tonight to grab a few things from the grocery store. As I drove down the road, I saw a car blocking the end of the street at a busy intersection. I thought they had broken down as they were pulled just out of the intersection but blocking the lane as there were cars parked along either side of it. No lights were on outside nor inside the car. No lights on and no flashers going.

As I approached and debated turning around, I saw shadows passing in front of the dark vehicle. So I kept going to see if there was assistance needed, or if I needed to report an abandoned car (it’s happened before…)

But I got closer, one car inches by turning on to the road as I pulled in to an empty space for a driveway. Then I pulled up to try to pass and saw there was not enough room to get by and started to reverse.

Just then, I saw someone get out of a car parked along the road and get into the Jeep blocking the road. They got in, and immediately lights came on and they backed into the intersection and turned to leave.

I followed them out as we were heading in the same way towards the main road. And when we went through the intersection and I turned into the shopping center nearby, they turned into the apartment complex across the street.

Recently, there have been cars lining the end of the road where I live and there’s no nearly enough houses for all of these cars to have suddenly appeared. Some of the cars have been sitting there for days without moving. Some have stickers on the windshield like they had been flagged for parking illegally elsewhere. Maybe the apartment complex?

So maybe there’s something going on at the apartment complex that’s causing people to park in our neighborhood. Which would be fine, except 1) don’t stop your car in the middle of the road, blocking it and 2) don’t park all the way to the end of the intersection. It’s a good way to get your car smashed into.

For a quiet, city street, we’ve had three cars flipped over in the past few years and a dozen more hit in varying degrees of severity from needing to be towed away for repair to getting a huge dent down the entire side.