My first parking-lot vulture

[greensinestro]

If there's zero parking, it's fair for someone to wait for your space, as long as they don't block you from leaving. In this case, it's polite to leave promptly or inform the person that you're going back into the store/mall. If they're blocking you from leaving, maybe go over and ask them to back up a little? In the grocery store, we ask others to move their carts so we can get through. This should apply to cars, too.

If the person's just wanting to park really close, and there's plenty of parking spaces, take your time. They're a "vulture/stalker."

But c'mon, if there's no parking, what do you expect drivers to do? NOT follow people leaving & potentially heading to their car?

Good point. The point I was making was based on those that pull this crap when there are other places to be parking, plus when you deal with someone who is about to run right over you to get your spot. I sometimes go to this indoor flea market near Ft Lauderdale, and almost always, especially during Snowbird season, you can't for the life of you find a spot. So, if I am leaving and I see someone is waiting (patiently, that is), I do what I can to be courteous and leave as soon as possible.

[Auto]

It was found, that the person who drives out to the end of the lot and parks; would in nearly every case get into the store before (yes, BEFORE) the person who waited for a spot to open up closer to the store. The company did the math on it, and found that the time spent waiting for a spot to open; then parking in it and leaving the vehicle, was longer than the time it would take to drive further in the lot to park and then walk in.

Anyone who lived in Chicago or New York knows that you always take the first available parking space instead of driving looking for the perfect space. While the driver in the first available space parks and walks to where he's going, the guy who is hunting for the prefect space will still be looking.

The Wal-mart research just confirmed big city folk wisdom.

[CurlyLocks]

Speaking of statistics and studies regarding parking, I remember a few years ago hearing of a study which revealed that when someone knew that another driver was waiting to get into the parking space they were about to vacate, the average time for them to leave the space was significantly longer than those who had no one waiting for their space! I don't remember the exact numbers but that's quite telling, no?

[the lawsmeister]

we were walking through a parking lot once and stopped to look at a car with a for sale sign in the window. Some dude stopped and then got all shirty and sped off when he realised we weren't going to get in. some of my friends had fallen behind and stopped to look at the same car. Another guy turned up and waited while they read the details of the sign. We actually considered hanging around to see how many people we could get to stop.