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Comment by litoE | Hacker News Reader

Many years ago I visited Buenos Aires, Argentina. In the flat parts of the city center, people would parallel-park their cars and leave them in neutral (very few cars had automatic transmissions) and without setting the parking brake. When you arrived and found a parking spot, there would be a man that, for some standard tip, would push all the cars in front or behind you, one at a time, until they were all bumper to bumper. This expanded the slot where you wanted to park, making your parking very easy.

When you wanted to leave, he would likewise push cars in front or behind you to widen the slot where you were, making it easy for you to pull out.

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I have found that across most of the world (including expensive "first world" countries in Europe) it is perfectly normal for cars to have random dings and bumps from everyday use. I had a tour guide in Italy who "nudged" the cars on either end while getting into a parking spot and no one thought twice about it. In the US it would have caused a mini riot.

Over here for some reason it is socially unacceptable to have a car in less than pristine factory condition even after months or years of use, and people will spend thousands to fix the tiniest of scratches. It's crazy just how much of the average person's paycheck goes towards just getting from one place to another.

The Grand Tour touched on this with their "french cars" episode.

> In the US it would have caused a mini riot.

Is that true everywhere in the US? In NYC I saw a lot of cars with rubber bumper guards, presumably to protect against these little "nudges" when parking.

In the UK this would be deeply frowned upon. Front + Rear dashcams would be used to claim on insurance and report a "hit and run" accident to the police.

I don't put it down to people trying to "make space", more down to incompetence IMO.

At least in the UK cars will generally be parked with the handbrake ("emergency brake" in the US AIUI) engaged, meaning that the back wheels will not move, so "nudging" a car will only damage it - if you are "nudging" hard enough to make the stationary wheels slide along tarmac, then that is quite some considerable force. A "little bump" can be enough to cause some expensive damage on modern cars.

So if you are "nudging" another car, I'd put it down to just being a bit of a crap driver who doesn't know what they're doing as you're basically simply driving into things (deliberately or accidentally)

> A "little bump" can be enough to cause some expensive damage on modern cars.

But the point is it's only expensive because people insist on repairing minor cosmetic damage to factory condition.

If people just accepted that when they leave giant objects lying around in public then they're going to get scratched occasionally, it would be cheaper and easier for everyone.

I think it depends on population density as well. I grew up in a rural area in the US and now live in Philadelphia on a tiny side street barely two cars wide. Every single car on our street has scratches/small dents on the bumper and fender from others parallel parking. If you live here you have to accept that "bumpers are for bumping"!

I did not mean minor cosmetic things.

I mean broken lights, broken parking sensors, broken washer jets, damaged number plates etc. Modern bumpers are designed to prevent injuries to pedestrians - it may "look fine" from the outside but internal mounting brackets etc may be bent out of alignment or otherwise damaged. These are all expensive to put right.

It's not normal in the UK to ever touch another car with your own. However I have heard that it happens in some towns/cities on the continent. I'm guessing they park on flat roads and leave the handbrake off. No idea how a car is supposed to escape if it's wedged between two others though.

As for dashcams, don't these normally switch off while the car is parked?

Most dash cams have a "parking mode" that records a clip if someone hits your car while it is parked.

Depends on the income level of the locality.

Where most of HN lives, yeah people go crazy over that crap.

Detroit PD would do their best not to laugh at you if you tried to get them to file a police report for a hit and run if "parking bump" was the nature of the hit. And insurance would probably try and stonewall you either way.

That sounds like the French system, only they push the other car forward with their car instead of requiring some random car pusher guy. And somehow that is legal (?)

Just over the border in Germany there's a good chance of getting beaten to death if you attempt something like that. Cars are holy here.

This is one of my favorite things about living in Germany. I bought my current car in 2018; it doesn't have a single scratch. Back home I'd be lucky to go six months without some careless idiot damaging it.

It's in fact one of my least favorite things about living in Germany (not the pristine-ness, but the holiness GP mentioned). Cars are absolutely holy, many drivers absolutely freak out when you dare touching their car or take up precious road space with your unworthy bicycle. Traffic rules for cars are often mere recommendations, and breaking them goes unsanctioned. Prioritizing motorized traffic is a borderline religion (e.g. the eternal discussion about a speed limit on the Autobahn), and other means of traffic are only very slowly awakening. What a waste of space, resources and quality of life.

Which part of Germany do you live in? It's really not a homogeneous place.

I'm in the north, but I've been to lots of places in all parts of Germany. In this aspect, the country seems fairly homogenous to me.

People also don't hesitate to honk if you are driving with a bike, or even a car slowly. It has a fine of 10 Euros, so nobody cares (even the Police themselves) if you call the police for abusive honking.

Last week we were driving 43km/s on a road with 50km/s limit. The driver behind us drove 10cm away from our bumper for like 5 minutes, and even though our indicator was on he didn't calculate we will slow down even further to turn right, and made an emergency brake then honked like 10 seconds as he/she was driving away as fast as that car could.

To be fair, it's not remotely as bad as back in Istanbul (what a mess there!), but I expected more from Germany, a country in which people normally love sticking to the rules.

Sometimes I watch this channel to see I'm not the only regular victim of traffic abuse: https://www.youtube.com/c/EureVideosFahrn%C3%BCnftig

In a weird way, it calms me down to see others also having similar problems. Edit: Just opened the latest video and here's another one - https://youtu.be/8mUi2uOzXvs?t=543

> People also don't hesitate to honk if you are driving with a bike, or even a car slowly.

The acoustic warning signal is meant to warn other traffic participants of imminent danger - which includes the intend to overtake (outside of towns). There is no fine for that.

> but I expected more from Germany, a country in which people normally love sticking to the rules.

Careful there: Your scenario does not exactly paint you as a hero. Driving deliberately slowly (you mentioned for "like 5 minutes") when higher speeds are possible (both from the street conditions and your vehicle's capabilities), if it hinders others from using legal use of the road (which includes driving at the speed limit), can be construed to be "Nötigung", which is a crime. (The other driver of course could be fined for the same as well)

> The acoustic warning signal is meant to warn other traffic participants of imminent danger - which includes the intend to overtake (outside of towns). There is no fine for that.

Honking before overtaking is completely fine, I know my rules. Imminent danger honking is allowed everywhere, even in towns. It's completely not allowed honking to mean "drive faster".

> Careful there: Your scenario does not exactly paint you as a hero

You are missing context, perhaps I should have given the full picture: The road IMHO wasn't suitable to drive at 50km/h. It was curvy with many parked cars on the sides. I wasn't trying to annoy anyone. I even started breaking earlier before turn so it wasn't a harder break, which may have saved us from an accident. Also 43 is nowhere near going "too slow". You need to drive 25 or less, so that it becomes a dangerous situation. The instructors would give you a warning in an exam before failing you if you do it twice, if you drive less than half the limit.

You can also drive 60km/h in a country road (limit 100km/h), and as long as you do not go below 50 for an extended period of time, you don't need to worry. If you are going slowly just to piss someone off, or you are creating a dangerous situation (for example, blocking the flow of the traffic when there's cross-traffic), that's a different story.

I'm not sure where this myth comes from but in France, although it's not a crime to slightly bump the car in front or before by mistake while parking if there isn't much space, it would be very much frowned upon to do it with enough force to actually move the other cars.

Using the handbrake while the car is parked is universal, and in most modern cars the handbrake activates automatically, so it would likely cause actual damage to try and move the other cars with your own. It's also not uncommon for people to put their car in 1st gear on purpose when parked (in my experience, mostly older people who don't fully trust handbrakes) so you'd be unlikely to move those at all.

It wouldn't be legal in any case, although I suppose it would be difficult to be covered by insurance without video evidence. If it happens when you aren't there then tough luck, but if you saw someone touch your car while parking you would go to them, check for damage and if there is indeed any damage you would both fill a constat d'accident (standardised European Accident Statement) to let your insurances sort it out.

> It's also not uncommon for people to put their car in 1st gear on purpose when parked (in my experience, mostly older people who don't fully trust handbrakes)

Having been a Saab owner, a habit I can't break is leaving my car in reverse (my Volvo's reverse gear position is the same as Saab's) with the handbrake on (a fairly universal thing in the UK).

Hm, personally, I got warned about this by my French language teacher. And the fact that there are videos of this "bumper-parking" happening [1][2][3] made it believable. Just over the border, touching a car like that is not a crime - but an accident (and leaving from an accident site without contacting the owner of the other vehicle OR the police is a crime).

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkCyepivokQ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n51OdFlOi1o [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA09matde2Y

All cars bumping others in your videos are already pretty damaged though and they are all in Paris, which is pretty much agreed upon in France to be home of the worst drivers in the country. I'm not surprised their drivers are doing this, but that doesn't make it a normal thing to do. Also, the "c'est normal en France" comments and applause in the second video are obviously sarcastic.

These are 100% just bad drivers that are lucky the owners of the other cars weren't here (and would have probably fled in that case). As I said, this behaviour results in filling an accident statement if the victim is present (and if actual damage is observed of course).

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