Karen Thinks She Can Park In People’s Driveways As She Pleases, Learns A $5,000 Lesson
Interview With AuthorYou can drive perfectly the entire day, but if you make a major mistake while pulling into a parking spot, it can be incredibly costly. Back into a poll, swipe the car next to you or forget to read the “Tow Away Zone” signs? You might be out hundreds of dollars before you even make it home.
And one woman had to learn this lesson the hard way after a poor parking decision combined with her entitlement and attitude cost her thousands. Below, you’ll find the full story that was recently posted on the Petty Revenge subreddit, as well as a conversation with the author of the post.
Making a mistake while parking can be incredibly costly
Image credits: Mike Von / unsplash (not the actual photo)
This woman learned the hard way to never park in a stranger’s driveway without permission
Image credits: Curated Lifestyle / unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Rude_Welcome_3269
Later, the author responded to several readers and shared more details about the situation
“Entitled people feel like they can do anything and that everyone’s purpose in life is to serve them”
To find out more about this situation, we reached out to the Reddit user who shared this story, Rude_Welcome_3269. They were kind enough to have a chat with Bored Panda and reveal whether or not they’ve ever been in a situation like this.
“I actually have, though not to the scale of this,” the OP shared. “There was someone who put ‘nice job [jerk], learn to park!’ business cards on every car they saw in a parking lot, and I mean every single one, even if they were parked perfectly. There was some angry dude yelling at the guy, and I just threw the card away.”
We also asked the author why they think this woman decided to park in their friend’s driveway in the first place. “Entitled people feel like they can do anything and that everyone’s purpose in life is to serve them,” Rude_Welcome_3269 explained. “She sees an open driveway and decides that they probably don’t need it as much as she does. You just have to ignore them or serve them some petty revenge.”
But the situation didn’t need to escalate to this point. The OP says that their friend definitely would have let the woman move her car if she hadn’t been so rude. “He said that if she apologized and asked nicely, he totally would have done it,” they noted. “He might have still towed it, but definitely not kept it in the driveway for 2 weeks.”
The author also doubts that this woman will park in anyone else’s driveway again, “but you never know with entitled people.” And as far as the replies to their post, Rude_Welcome_3269 says, “There were a lot of funny replies and ways to piss her off even more. I read every single one and replied as much as I could.”
Finally, the author added some words of wisdom: “Don’t be entitled, and definitely don’t park in anyone else’s driveways.”
Image credits: Andraz Lazic / unsplash (not the actual photo)
Nearly half of drivers consider parking to be the most stressful aspect of driving
If you live in a big city, you know just how stressful parking can be. Unless you’re willing to pay $20 an hour, finding a decent spot can often feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. And even if you live in the suburbs, parking restrictions and popular times, like during the holidays, can turn the simple act of parking your car into an absolute nightmare.
But if you find yourself dreading parking every time you get behind the wheel, you’re not alone. According to a survey from AppyParking, a whopping 48% of drivers consider parking to be the most stressful part of driving.
And although 62% of drivers do consider themselves to be skilled when it comes to parking, a third admit that they never know where there are parking restrictions. 31% admit that they find information about parking to be confusing, and over a quarter often worry that they’ve parked somewhere they weren’t allowed to.
Another frustrating aspect of parking, however, is how other people do it. 78% of drivers say that they get annoyed when others park poorly, and it’s no secret that parking disputes often cause drama between neighbors.
In fact, the Independent reports that 48% of homeowners have had their garages, driveways or assigned parking spots blocked by a neighbor before. 16% of homeowners also admit that they’ve argued with a neighbor over parking before.
Image credits: Pim de Boer / unsplash (not the actual photo)
Having your car towed can easily cost hundreds of dollars
Over a third feel like they have to compete with their fellow residents just to find somewhere to park their cars, and 18% have even resorted to leaving objects in front of driveways or parking spots to keep other drivers away.
We all know how annoying it can be to struggle to find a parking spot, but it’s certainly not worth it to park illegally if it’s going to end up biting you in the wallet in the end. A small fine or ticket might not be the end of the world, but if you end up getting your car towed, like the woman in this story, it can be a massive hassle and expensive process to get it back.
According to J.D. Power, the average cost of having a car towed in the United States is about $109. However, the grand total can vary greatly depending on how far the car needs to travel. For example, a journey of 5 miles or less might cost you less than $100. But if your car needs to be towed for around 40 miles, you could spend up to $275. And if the car is taken 100 miles, you could be hit with an exorbitant $600 bill.
Now, your insurance might help you out with that cost if you suddenly ended up with a flat tire while driving down the highway. But if you willingly parked somewhere illegally, you’re probably going to be on your own when it comes to paying that bill.
We would love to hear your thoughts on this parking drama in the comments below, pandas. How do you feel about this person’s petty revenge? Then, if you’d like to read another, similar piece, be sure to check out this Bored Panda article next!
Image credits: ms uppy / unsplash (not the actual photo)
Readers applauded the author’s friend for his petty revenge and shared their reactions to the tale
Poll Question
Thanks! Check out the results:
I don't think this happened, at least not in this way for this long. 1) You can't hold people's property like that, regardless of the situation. It's still theft. 2) The police would've come and let the friend know this. 3) Since it was a rental, the rental agency would've come and got it and pressed charges if they weren't allowed to claim their property. I could keep going with this.
100% disagree with you. Live in SF, share a 4-car carport with my house & my mom’s house. We’re alongside a popular park. The carport has a garage door style iron fence that lowers down. I’ve dealt with random parking in our driveway/carport my entire life. We lock them in & when the police get ahold of us, we make arrangements for them to remove their property in a timely manner. That’s been anywhere from hours to a week, depending if we’re home or not. It’s 100% a civil matter & we are not breaking any laws by not being readily available at any moment. It’s no different if you left your wallet in my house and I was out of town & couldn’t return it until I was home. In no way am I obligated to fly home to unlock my house to get you your wallet. As long as I’m not home/available, I’m not illegally impounding it.
Load More Replies...Trespass is an intentional tort - a legal violation. Karen didn't need to know who owned the land, she simply had to knowingly enter another person's property with the intent to place AND LEAVE her car there. She committed trespass. And because it's a strict liability tort, the homeowner does not have to prove she intended any harm, only that Karen intended to leave her car on his property. And he has her car to prove that's exactly what she did. I would love to hear what her attorney told Karen when she finally got him or her on the phone. I'm pretty sure they told Karen to buzz off, which is why the next person at the guy's door was NOT a process server.
All she had to do was be nice, but that's just too damn hard for some people. And when people could be nice and aren't, tough t!tty for whatever sh!t they bring onto themselves.
I'm surprised that there are so many naive people willing to believe any story they read
TBH, our state fair creates a core "parked illegally" thing but, yeah, the two week "lesson" is unbelievable.
Load More Replies...If she had been nice instead of a Karen he probably would have moved his car. I would take the tag off and say it can't go anywhere since it no longer has a tag, I'm not getting a ticket because of your entitled stupidity! BYE KAREN
Simple request: Please don't use my name for this type of behavour. Its not funny we get bullied and insulted because of it.
I feel for you. I try hard not to use it myself but the one time I commented I think it’s a horrible thing to do to people who can’t help what their parents named them, I got mad downvotes and comments about being over-sensitive. People don’t understand the harm they are doing and when you call them out on it they get angry, defensive, because “everyone is doing it”. Yeah, well, decades ago, ‘everyone’ used the n-word and hardly anyone thought twice about it. Of course, I get yelled out for drawing that comparison because “it’s not the same”. How else do you describe using a word or name to demean a minority? How can they not see that women called Karen are suffering and being bullied because they’re not willing to come up with an alternative description?
Load More Replies...I had this problem several years ago, my neighbors across the alley from my parking spot had some people that parked in my spot every single Sunday, and I got fed up with having to go and ask them to not park there anymore. Sometimes it was late at night and I’d come home to find them parked in my spot or across it even though there was a sign saying private property tenant only and my house number. So I resorted to calling the cops on them and they got cited for parking behind my spot and for parking in the alley where there were signs that clearly stated “NO PARKING IN THE ALLEY “, but I guess they must have had plenty of money to pay for tickets, until they received a letter from the city stating that if they had had to send someone out there to deal with them, their car would be towed at their expense. After that they finally complied.
I would have said, I am so sorry I didn't realize it was a driveway. I wouldn't have parked here if I knew. May I get out so you can have it back? However, I am sure they knew it was a driveway.
The Parker could have got arrested for leaving a motor vehicle at somebody's house without permission.
Growing up i lived just down the street from the beach. One 4th of July a "karen" parked in our driveway for the fireworks. I told my mom have it towed but she was way to nice. I would have!!!!! I hate people who think they are entitled!!🤮
Here in Texas people would miss the extreme curve plow through a fence and hit a huge oak tree. They fled the scene leaving the car behind. The owner went and chained the car to the tree. It stayed there for over two years, they eventually tracked down the “owners” notified them of the car being chained to the tree, they filed civil claims the judge laughed at them before he dismissed the case. The judge refused to force the car to be removed even the insurance company could not step foot on the property, the sign read posted no trespassing! There it sat twenty feet from the roadway. Finally the man sold the car to a scrap yard for damages to his property. If the owners would’ve filed a police report about the car being stolen things would’ve been different, except for the keys in the ignition containing the owners house keys! It would’ve been fraud
We live in a town where there’s no overnight parking allowed, but luckily we can fit our 4 cars into our long narrow driveway. There is only one parking space in front of our house which we need to use when we back our cars out. One three day weekend, someone left a car in front of our house from Friday until Monday and it built up tickets for three nights. On Monday afternoon we heard all this yelling outside. It was a young girl yelling at her friend, “You told me I could park here.” The actual place she could have parked was the last house on the corner which is out of the town. I remember thinking I was glad because we were without a parking spot for three days.
Let’s keep in mind, that if she had come to his door, polite and apologetic and offered him $50 in compensation and asked if he could please move his car briefly he probably would have moved it right away. If he was real difficult, she could offer $100 and ask nicely again. If he was an a……e she could have called the police, explained her mistake/poor choice and they would have tried to convince him. Then, if he continued to be difficult, she could call the city and maybe small claims court. But I would be suprised if it ever got past $50. Often it is not what you do. It is how you do it!
If this happened to me I would have called the cops and filed a trespass complaint and the car’s owner would have to pay the ticket plus go to court to explain why they trespassed on private property. It’s still a crime to trespass on other people’s property. Especially if there is medical emergency and the emergency people can’t gain access to the house because of a stranger’s car blocking the driveway. Hefty fines for sure. Trespassing is illegal.
In most US states this would not have happened. He would have been required to move the car, but she could have gotten a ticket for trespassing.
To think, she could've been accountable to her actions, apologized to the man for the inconvenience she caused him... I wonder how he would have responded then.
Depending how the person approached me, I would probably forgive the trespass. I would also invest in one of those removable bollards to prevent someone from using my drive illegally in future... If the person had been an entitled tw@t, I'd have held the car hostage until they offered enough money for me to get that bollard...
Didn't read, again "an innocent Gen Millenium is done wrong by a boomer" story? Just going with the headline: Don't block other people in, unless you are an ambulance, fire brigade truck or police attending to an emergency.
Stopped reading after the first misspelled word in the first paragraph.
Your anger is misplaced, BOTH contributors are women. You might also want to have a cup of tea, take a deep breath, and calm the fu¢k down.
Load More Replies...I don't think this happened, at least not in this way for this long. 1) You can't hold people's property like that, regardless of the situation. It's still theft. 2) The police would've come and let the friend know this. 3) Since it was a rental, the rental agency would've come and got it and pressed charges if they weren't allowed to claim their property. I could keep going with this.
100% disagree with you. Live in SF, share a 4-car carport with my house & my mom’s house. We’re alongside a popular park. The carport has a garage door style iron fence that lowers down. I’ve dealt with random parking in our driveway/carport my entire life. We lock them in & when the police get ahold of us, we make arrangements for them to remove their property in a timely manner. That’s been anywhere from hours to a week, depending if we’re home or not. It’s 100% a civil matter & we are not breaking any laws by not being readily available at any moment. It’s no different if you left your wallet in my house and I was out of town & couldn’t return it until I was home. In no way am I obligated to fly home to unlock my house to get you your wallet. As long as I’m not home/available, I’m not illegally impounding it.
Load More Replies...Trespass is an intentional tort - a legal violation. Karen didn't need to know who owned the land, she simply had to knowingly enter another person's property with the intent to place AND LEAVE her car there. She committed trespass. And because it's a strict liability tort, the homeowner does not have to prove she intended any harm, only that Karen intended to leave her car on his property. And he has her car to prove that's exactly what she did. I would love to hear what her attorney told Karen when she finally got him or her on the phone. I'm pretty sure they told Karen to buzz off, which is why the next person at the guy's door was NOT a process server.
All she had to do was be nice, but that's just too damn hard for some people. And when people could be nice and aren't, tough t!tty for whatever sh!t they bring onto themselves.
I'm surprised that there are so many naive people willing to believe any story they read
TBH, our state fair creates a core "parked illegally" thing but, yeah, the two week "lesson" is unbelievable.
Load More Replies...If she had been nice instead of a Karen he probably would have moved his car. I would take the tag off and say it can't go anywhere since it no longer has a tag, I'm not getting a ticket because of your entitled stupidity! BYE KAREN
Simple request: Please don't use my name for this type of behavour. Its not funny we get bullied and insulted because of it.
I feel for you. I try hard not to use it myself but the one time I commented I think it’s a horrible thing to do to people who can’t help what their parents named them, I got mad downvotes and comments about being over-sensitive. People don’t understand the harm they are doing and when you call them out on it they get angry, defensive, because “everyone is doing it”. Yeah, well, decades ago, ‘everyone’ used the n-word and hardly anyone thought twice about it. Of course, I get yelled out for drawing that comparison because “it’s not the same”. How else do you describe using a word or name to demean a minority? How can they not see that women called Karen are suffering and being bullied because they’re not willing to come up with an alternative description?
Load More Replies...I had this problem several years ago, my neighbors across the alley from my parking spot had some people that parked in my spot every single Sunday, and I got fed up with having to go and ask them to not park there anymore. Sometimes it was late at night and I’d come home to find them parked in my spot or across it even though there was a sign saying private property tenant only and my house number. So I resorted to calling the cops on them and they got cited for parking behind my spot and for parking in the alley where there were signs that clearly stated “NO PARKING IN THE ALLEY “, but I guess they must have had plenty of money to pay for tickets, until they received a letter from the city stating that if they had had to send someone out there to deal with them, their car would be towed at their expense. After that they finally complied.
I would have said, I am so sorry I didn't realize it was a driveway. I wouldn't have parked here if I knew. May I get out so you can have it back? However, I am sure they knew it was a driveway.
The Parker could have got arrested for leaving a motor vehicle at somebody's house without permission.
Growing up i lived just down the street from the beach. One 4th of July a "karen" parked in our driveway for the fireworks. I told my mom have it towed but she was way to nice. I would have!!!!! I hate people who think they are entitled!!🤮
Here in Texas people would miss the extreme curve plow through a fence and hit a huge oak tree. They fled the scene leaving the car behind. The owner went and chained the car to the tree. It stayed there for over two years, they eventually tracked down the “owners” notified them of the car being chained to the tree, they filed civil claims the judge laughed at them before he dismissed the case. The judge refused to force the car to be removed even the insurance company could not step foot on the property, the sign read posted no trespassing! There it sat twenty feet from the roadway. Finally the man sold the car to a scrap yard for damages to his property. If the owners would’ve filed a police report about the car being stolen things would’ve been different, except for the keys in the ignition containing the owners house keys! It would’ve been fraud
We live in a town where there’s no overnight parking allowed, but luckily we can fit our 4 cars into our long narrow driveway. There is only one parking space in front of our house which we need to use when we back our cars out. One three day weekend, someone left a car in front of our house from Friday until Monday and it built up tickets for three nights. On Monday afternoon we heard all this yelling outside. It was a young girl yelling at her friend, “You told me I could park here.” The actual place she could have parked was the last house on the corner which is out of the town. I remember thinking I was glad because we were without a parking spot for three days.
Let’s keep in mind, that if she had come to his door, polite and apologetic and offered him $50 in compensation and asked if he could please move his car briefly he probably would have moved it right away. If he was real difficult, she could offer $100 and ask nicely again. If he was an a……e she could have called the police, explained her mistake/poor choice and they would have tried to convince him. Then, if he continued to be difficult, she could call the city and maybe small claims court. But I would be suprised if it ever got past $50. Often it is not what you do. It is how you do it!
If this happened to me I would have called the cops and filed a trespass complaint and the car’s owner would have to pay the ticket plus go to court to explain why they trespassed on private property. It’s still a crime to trespass on other people’s property. Especially if there is medical emergency and the emergency people can’t gain access to the house because of a stranger’s car blocking the driveway. Hefty fines for sure. Trespassing is illegal.
In most US states this would not have happened. He would have been required to move the car, but she could have gotten a ticket for trespassing.
To think, she could've been accountable to her actions, apologized to the man for the inconvenience she caused him... I wonder how he would have responded then.
Depending how the person approached me, I would probably forgive the trespass. I would also invest in one of those removable bollards to prevent someone from using my drive illegally in future... If the person had been an entitled tw@t, I'd have held the car hostage until they offered enough money for me to get that bollard...
Didn't read, again "an innocent Gen Millenium is done wrong by a boomer" story? Just going with the headline: Don't block other people in, unless you are an ambulance, fire brigade truck or police attending to an emergency.
Stopped reading after the first misspelled word in the first paragraph.
Your anger is misplaced, BOTH contributors are women. You might also want to have a cup of tea, take a deep breath, and calm the fu¢k down.
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