Inconsiderate parking

I would guess we have all seen it, cars parked on opposite sides of the road turning it into a chicane just say passable by one car.  Which person made the poor choice is hard to tell unless you saw who was the last to park.

This is an annoyance to most  drivers as they squeeze through and go on their way.

Now park the cars on a bus route, oddly a bus is a bit wider than a car, the squeeze through space is not squeezable at all.

So picture my bus home (1st buss in that direction, double decker) turning off the roundabout to pull into the main street (of an old town so it is not wide) to discover two vehicles perfectly parked to prevent the bus from passing.  Now as I may have mentioned before the buses on this route run at one every ten minutes, that is quite tight, and of course they run both ways, so there is another bus coming from the opposite direction too.  The town is a transit point for several routes so it is rather busy with buses.

One of the inconsiderately parked vehicles is a little van, back doors open a man is loading goods from a shop on the opposite side of the street.   The van belongs to the shop, the driver sees the buses predicament and ignores it, bus driver tries a beep of the horn and gets a rude gesture in return.  Now I don't drive but I can see that if the van was moved forward it would allow the bus the space to completed the turn and pass however that would give Mr Van Man a bit further to carry the load..so no joy there.

The other vehicle is a large car parked outside a fish and chip shop, I think a passer by points out the driver is in the chip shop. Bus driver leaves the bus goes to the shop to ask the car be moved.  On his return he with some frustration advises the passengers the car driver is waiting for a bag of chips and won't move.

The traffic building behind the bus I am on is now blocking the round about, the bus coming in the other direction and has had to stop (as we are a big red double decker and so is he, he spotted the blockage soon enough to stop when he won't block forward passage) however, that bus now blocks the egress for Mr Van driver who having unhurriedly filled his van and slowly and smugly closed the doors now finds he can't go as oh dear there is a bus in the way. Now he too must wait as do we all, passengers and drivers as the jam spreads both ways, for  Mr Chip Man to get his bag of chips.

He , having got his chips, saunters out apparently revelling in the chaos he has contributed to gets into his car as starts to pull away, not that he gets too far either as he needs to pull onto the round about which is yes you guessed it blocked by the traffic stuck behind the bus.

Fortunately for all the space he does make by moving just a couple of feet is enough for our driver to squeeze round and past and gradually traffic starts to move.

The inconsiderate parking has cost  lots of people time, generated a lot of frustration in drivers passengers , people waiting at bus stops... a moment of thought could have avoided it all.