NEW ANNUAL IDIOT PARKING AWARDS.

[BusybeasDS]

LOL

No apologies, but..... my personal view :

I lump all German 'Premium' Car drivers (BMW, Audi, Mercedes) in the same gene pool ;o)
The only difference between any of them is the badge on the car!

They ALL have Das Attitude ..

Steve

[mickthemaverick]

Just to be clear Steve you are not including Trabant drivers in that group I assume?

[BusybeasDS]

LOL, good point..

For clarification:

I have now added 'Premium' before the German Cars.. so... specifically BMW, Audi and Mercs... (in my50 years+ of driving experience) .
VW, Opel and Smart are usually driven by 'Normal' people , with no more or less attitude than we, French Car drivers ;o)

[Huskyxantia]

Oh you said rant, swore I saw a c and a u but it was an r and the letter a , my eyes are bad .. honest

[CitroJim]

My son-in-law drives an Audi... He's the exception that proves the rule

[BusybeasDS]

My son-in-law drives an Audi... He's the exception that proves the rule

My get out of jail card from my original post
" I rest my case... in my personal experience, most drivers (caveat maybe not all)"

My daughter had a Mercedes A class, though she has now crossed over from the Dark side and has a Peugeot, which she loves ;o
I also admit when I was a passenger when my daughter drove her Merc, it was akin to a white knuckle ride!
She's a much better / calmer driver in the slower Peugeot.. LOL

I have no doubt there are also 'mental' drivers of le frog marques too, ;o)

[Richard_C]

Just to be clear Steve you are not including Trabant drivers in that group I assume?

It was 1989, November, just 2 days after the Berlin wall was opened up. I was on my way up the M6/M74 somewhere around the border twixt England and Scotland. Up ahead, a cloud of smoke and there was a fainf whiff of 2 stroke oil. I soon caught and passed a Trabant, headed north, a couple, back seats piled high with stuff, driver hunched over the wheel. I reckon they drove into West Germany as soon as they could and decided to get as far away as possible in case Honecker made a comeback and closed it all again.

How times change. In the 70's the cars that I and my friends would never let out of a sideroad in a traffic queue was a Volvo Estate, arrogant self-satisfied plutocrats. Then it was BMW - especially black ones - Merc and Audi somehow didn't seem as bad.

In the mid 90s as an HR Director I looked after pay and reward policy and one of the things I did was open up our car policy - strictly Ford/Vauxhall choices - to any mainstream manufacturer. We had about 450 cars, some for people who needed them and some as a senior manaer benefit. A sales manager I knew well was due a new car and said to me "Im thinking about a BMW 320 - will it make ne look like a ****". Yes, I said. But he got one anyway. Not black, a colour he called "Adolescent Red". Midlife crisis?

Then, for me at least, it was huge tonka toys that I wouldn't give way to. But today its different: Teslas. I feel a bit sorry for people who innocently bought them a while back but anyone who paid good money to Tesla/Musk in recent years gets no help at all. They might be decent people but on the balance of probabilities ... hmmm.

But all of this is a digression from idiot parking, dountless though there is a correlation between brand of car and the arrogance of people who belive they can just stop and get out wherever it suits them. "Oh, I won't be long, just popping in the the bank, dry cleaners, etc etc. Including a bus lane in Cambridge: 50 people sit and wait for them to get back in their car. I reckon P&R busses should have roof mounted driver operated laser disintegrators (do they exist?) to clear the way. Grrrrrr.

[Paul-R]

Ah, the Trabby. I remember seeing one when out marshalling on the RAC Rally. I think it might have been when the rally started in Chester so that would be 1979 for the first time. We cheered the little car whenever we saw it putt-putting its way around the stages. Did it finish? I can't remember. Maybe it appeared in more than one RAC?

[Richard_C]

Ah, the Trabby. I remember seeing one when out marshalling on the RAC Rally.

Are you sure it was a Trabby? Maybe a Warburg, equally smelly 2t from East Germany but at least mostly metal. Not sure a cardboard box would have passed scrutineering, but Wartburgs were entered for a few years around then in an attempt to sell cars in the UK. They always got a cheer from spectators, body roll was so bad I always wondered if the works drivers thought that all the UK was always at 45 degrees from horizontal.

We digress…

[mickthemaverick]

Possibly this one in 1992 Paul?

The Trabby at Weston Park (pinched from Flickr)