The way people park in Poland is off the hook. The problem is that there is simply not enough parking spaces in the city. There are no lots to park in and the only parking garages to be found are next to huge malls, and those too fill up fast. The streets around the city square are tight and don’t allow too many parked cars. This creates sort of a wild west scenario when it comes to parking. It’s every man, or woman, out for themselves. No rules or laws apply, and common sense is also put aside in those moments.
I have also made two other observations:
1. The better the car the worse of a parking job you will see. Mercedes, Porsche Cayanne’s, BMWs, and newer SUVs are just notorious offenders. As if they can do whatever they want because either no one will tag an expensive car, or they can simply afford a ticket.
2. People have gotten really really lazy or they really want to show off their car. I live a 10 minute walk from my church. Yet the small parking around it is notoriously crowded with my neighbors cars. In a city where we have public transportation Los Angeles can only dream about, with street cars and buses every 10 minutes, and a law with zero tolerance towards drinking and driving, I would think everyone here would leave their cars at home.
Here are a couple of photos I took over the weekend.
But parking has been such a hot topic that there is a web site dedicated to photographing such public offenders. It’s called www.swietekrowy.pl and in a literal sense it means “Holy Cows”, but in a more accurate translation it relates to the “untouchable” attitude of the person who left the car. Unfortunately the site is strictly in polish, but here’s a direct link to parking photos from Wrocław:
The Polish Magician 