I mostly walk, sometimes I take public transportation and more rarely use my families car. I get really mad when people park their cars across the sidewalk. It's an annoyance for me, but when I see a disabled, elderly or young person leaveing the sidewalk to navigate around someone who has decided to make that portion of their driveway which is a sidewalk their parking spot I get enraged. There is a giant halfway house one block away from my home for people who are either disabled or recovering from phisical or emotional trauma. I have watched them navigate these hazards many times.
I have protested this kind of parking in a variety of ways, ponder it and you will probably think of a few of them. The problem with these types of protests was that it wasn't changing anyone's behavior.
I was dissatisfied, I wanted people to pay enough of a price that they might either learn a lesson or have to pay a price that made blocking sidewalks undesirable. Someone close to me has access to a high quality printing press that was occasionally used for art, hijinks, or whatever fun project we could think of. I asked her to make me these stickers.
I put them on the front windshield, driver-side. It is rare to see the same car blocking the same drive more then once. I have given a few stickers to other walkers some of whom have come back for more. I think it was a good, non destructive solution to this sort of antisocial behavior, I think it's a solution that suggest's I might have learned from my education in economics (incentives/disincentives) and my gradual maturation from a person who readily engaged in dangerous confrontations to someone who can seek out lower risk higher reward solutions.
You should not sticker people's cars. It would be much better to put it under their windshield wiper like an advertising flyer. This will give them the opportunity to consider how their behavior impacts others. If you're trying to educate someone, your first step should not be doing something that enrages them. Furthermore, you don't suddenly gain the right to vandalize people's property because they are acting insensitive to the needs of others or in violation of the law.
As another commenter posted out above, some folk just aren't receptive to polite requests not to be an asshole. In these cases, I fully endorse public shaming.
Who said it would work? I just think unrepentant assholes deserve to be publicly shamed.
I don't think we're dealing with unrepentant assholes here. We're dealing with inconsiderate idiots. "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." I know I've hurt people out of stupidity my share of times. St. Bernard of Clairvaux once said the the cardinal virtues are "humility, humility, and humility." When we see bad things in the world, we should try to correct them, but we shouldn't automatically assume that the people doing the bad things are always bad people. That is, unless we're all bad people too?
Until one knows the reason someone may have parked that way, one should not take action. This is what's wrong with every strand of vigilantism. Sure, it could be simple inconsideration, but that usually isn't the case; some other believable causes for the behavior could be simple ignorance (which calls for education, not vandalism), or emergency circumstance (which makes stickering the only antisocial behavior in this case), just for examples. There is no good reason to forgo the benefit of the doubt. On an emotional level, OP isn't acting in a "mature" way, or being brave, or a force for good, or anything of the like. This behavior is cowardly, passive-aggressive, and slightly criminal, and sooner or later will likely end in what I can only see as a much-deserved beat-down.
I like this idea. I'm now considering making similar stickers, but with a bicycling bent -- I Park in the Bike Lane, maybe.
I would like to put stickers on bike riders that go through red lights, but I can't catch them. I like the idea of riding a bike in a Western city, but people drive too fast and aren't used to recognizing non-cars as entities on the road. It also gets me riled when bike riders don't think that traffic laws apply to them. It'd be nice if there were a network of bike roads that were separate from regular streets, something elevated maybe.
Ride a motorcycle. You'll get accustomed to the idea that the big boxes all around you are indifferent and inattentive to your death and that you are essentially playing Frogger with zero lives left. Then when you hop on your bicycle you'll be thrilled by how little room you take up and the fact that you can pop onto the sidewalk when things get truly dicey!
I do. I've traveled a fair bit and it's only in the US that I find people who are so ridiculously unaware of the moment to moment situation on the road. The roads here are simply too safe for cars, the people drive too fast, and they aren't used to seeing anything other than cars or trucks as part of traffic. It's only in the US that I see such intense road rage. Especially over lane sharing. To be fair, lots of riders are shitty here too. They start off on big bikes to feel like they've got balls, then eat it and give the rest of us the reputation of being weekend warrior organ donors. Anyway, maybe biking would be a nice change. I wouldn't have to worry about some asshole tipping my bike over in displaced anger caused by some other rider.
It comes from the fact that the drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco is the same as the drive from Paris to Zurich. The interstate freeway system allows you to rapidly cross vast expanses of nothing that aren't common anywhere but Africa and Central Asia and in town, the roads are designed to emulate the interstate freeway system. Find a bike path. Ride it. Google actually does a pretty good job of giving you bike directions these days. According to Runkeeper I've biked 3500 miles in the past two years. My total investment was $800 for the bike in 2009, three sets of tires, a replacement crank, sprocket and two chains.
Yeah, I guess I didn't factor in how long distances might affect driving attitudes. I think most people from outside of the US and certainly many who don't tend to drive long stretches within the US forget how enormous the place is. That's a whole lot of mileage on a bike!
The freeway system explains so much gigantism in the American car ethic. I remember driving around Switzerland and noting that the widest lanes there are about as wide as the lanes on bridge decks in the US. The widest lanes in the US, on the other hand, are about as wide as the narrowest parking lots over there. Fun fact: Soviet armor was explicitly designed to weigh less than American armor so that Soviet/Iron Curtain bridges could be built that would support Soviet tank columns but collapse under the weight of American tank columns. Tankers in the Red Army couldn't be over 5'8."
| It'd be nice if there were a network of bike roads that were separate from regular streets, something elevated maybe.| We have "The Greenway" here in the Twin Cities. Hard to get funding for, because bikes aren't taxed like cars are, nor do they use gasoline, so there's really not "biker specific tax" to pay for these projects unlike traditional roads. But slowly, every year, it gets better and better. Parts of the greenway are completely separate from roads, have tunnels, over passes, and it is almost entirely separate from roads out in the burbs. But as it moves into Minneapolis obviously that's not the case, and the overpasses and underpasses become fewer and farther between and at that point it just kind of turns into street riding. But they've widen the bike lanes, taken away traffic lanes, changes the speed limits, and the stop light timings on many of the roads that are considered part of the greenway. The make the speed limits so slow for cars (like 20 or 25), that everyone in a car just uses something else. They are trying to make it run full east/west through the whole downtown and heavily populated areas, and convert roads into bike only for it at some point. But it's a process, and again, the funding is tough when the people who use it aren't paying any specific taxes to that infrastructure, so it relies heavily on donations currently.
Biking can be great, or it can be shit. Depends on the city. I live in one of the top 10 bike friendly cities in the US, so despite the shitty winters up here, it's actually quite nice.
Please don't. I ride a bicycle a lot. And I ride in LA. Often I ride through Santa Monica and Venice. But I don't wear a helmet, and I don't ride on the last Friday of the month, because I really, REALLY, REALLY don't want to be associated with the Critical Massholes. I have people try to kill me every day. I know they aren't doing it on purpose. They simply aren't paying attention. yet I know that me shouting out "pay attention" won't make them pay attention, it'll just make them surly. People park in bike lanes. They don't do it to be dicks, they do it because they suck at parking. Putting a sticker on their bke that says "I Park in the Bike Lane" says two things: it calls them out for sucking at parking, and it tells them that ALL BICYCLISTS ARE ASSHOLES. And we're not. Some of us are just enjoying some fresh air.
Depending on the location of the bike lane, I don't think it would have the same impact. I expect the above example works because it targets people parking outside their own properties, where they are identifiable. They become embarrassed or intimidated that someone in their local community is upset with them. I am not sure that tackling anti-social behaviour with anti-social behaviour can be classed as a solution.
I agree that the intent and outcome is community focused, but the delivery is antisocial. Its success is reliant on embarrassing a selfish individual or intimidating an ignorant individual. It doesn't necessarily educate the individual or give them an opportunity to defend their actions. It may cause them to reflect on their actions, but the objective is achieved through alienation rather than inclusion. The individual circumstances will determine whether the ends justifies the means. I would be interested to know what other methods of protest you used and why they were not as successful.
I have asked people "Could you please park on the street?" "Pardon me, there are kids riding their bikes on this street, could you park on the street?" "Hey, that isn't a parking spot" left a note. I've been told "fuck off" "mind your own business" or just looked at like an ugly thing and ignored. Twice I've had it seem like it might get violent, one of those times with my one year old daughter in my arms. I wasn't always perfectly polite, and I have after being told to fuck myself directed some choice invectives in return. I would say anyone who blocks a sidewalk with their car doesn't really give a fuck about being good to their fellow man. They either don't really think of their fellow man (probably the people who act like they don't hear me or don't understand what I'm saying) or they are just anti-social pricks who only care about themselves and don't give a fuck to inconvenience others (the ones who want to get in my face about it). I have gotten neighbors on my street to not block sidewalks, but I don't think they actually understand why they shouldn't do it, or why I care. It's as if thinking about the consequences of their actions when there is not personal downside to what they are doing is unimaginable. I live in a duplex. My next door neighbor has relatives who drive out in two minivans a few times a year. If we aren't parked in the driveway when they get here they park both of their minivans in the drive with the back one blocking the sidewalk. On THREE DIFFERENT OCCASIONS I have knocked on the door and asked them to please move one of their vans to the street. They look at me like I'm a dick or a fool shaking their head every time they see me. (I'm super nice about it, I like my neighbor, but not her relatives). I'm sure I'll be asking them to move their goddamn van again, I don't really understand why I have to keep doing that. The other way society has for getting people to not block sidewalks is an expensive ticket, I would actually say that my method is probably a bit more gentle.
In Lithuania they distribute these stikers for free
Find a discreet printer, or do it yourself. You only need to sticker one off duty cop to become a public enemy. If you make them you need to edit out the text of that sticker from your comment so that the text isn't searchable. I was sad that I couldn't get drop proxy to post the image and further obsqure my identity.
The reality is humiliation doesn't work to change behavior. But natural consequences do. Check the law in the area you live. In my city it's against the law to park on the sidewalk portion of the driveway. Take pics and email or snail mail them anonymously to the police. This was the tactic before cell phones, where disability advocates used Polaroids of nondisabled drivers parking in protected parking spots. to document and send in the info to the police or in this case the DOT would also issue tickets, and tickets can be issued by mail. They were glad to do so. Tickets bring in revenue and It took zero work on their part. To clarify, these are people without proper handicap accessible parking tags. Not just someone who doesn't "look" disabled. There are plenty of invisible disabilities. It might be tempting to photo a person in a wheelchair or other visible disability being forced out into the street, but in the past they were often given tickets...so it's a bit sticky. I am not sure if that is still the case. Another problem with the sticker is that it doesn't teach other people:the audience, anything about why it's bad to park there, which is actually very important. Most people just don't know. Or don't think. Vigilantes generally only accomplish short term attention, whether negative or positive and not change. Advocates both show and tell, must come across as fair and reasonable. It's all a matter of looking inside and ask yourself are you wanting to vent your frustration or put it to work. Fwiw
I don't know if you are arguing that my tactic hopes to work through humiliation or not, but I would argue that it does not. I'd say that it works because it's a pain in the ass to scrape a sticker off the dead center on your field of vision on your car, which sounds like a consequence. I will say that my tactic has been 100% effective with only one application on the scofflaws I walked by a few hundred times before I started my campaign. I am not on a one man campaign to stop people from parking on sidewalks across the world, nation or my city. I adresse my audience one person at a time, working mostly in my own neighborhood. I wonder where you get the idea that vigilantism only gets short term "attention" (whatever that means)? Do you think that it's wrong for a single person to try to cause positive change in their direct environment during the time they are in it? Sounds like that at least. Why do you think my advocacy is unfair and unreasonable? I think it's fair, reasonable and working.