No Car For Me, Thanks

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In certain areas of Prague, like the street in front of our flat, car owners have to park at an angle on the curb. It's nice the police allow for this extra parking since cars are more abundant these days, but they didn't change the height of the curbs when they decided to allow parking.


As you can maybe imagine, the curb is no small rise for vehicles. Almost every day we hear a grating noise as the the bottom of cars scrape along the curb. I'm convinced that a car mechanic persuaded the city to allow this. They must make boodles of money when these cars need repair.


Gunning engines sometime wake us up in the middle of the night as owners try to mount the curb to park their car again. I have to say I'm happy we don't own one. I'm sure I couldn't get my car to do that.



Then, there's the problem of where the cars stop once they're on top of the curb. A white line is painted on the ground for the front bumper. Would you know where that little white line is on the ground?


As a result, pedestrians often don't have a very large space to walk since cars' noses snitch some of the precious space.



Of course, there's always someone who insists on backing up the vehicle into the space even though his parking spot might be hard to judge. But, I guess, who cares if you're on the curb or off the curb. A space is a space. Again, what does this do to the vehicle?

On some streets the drivers are required to park in normal parallel parking spaces. They can consider themselves fortunate, but, of course, a parking spot is a luxury on those blocks.



The most fortunate are the people who have parking in the courtyard behind their apartment building. The resident parking spaces are only accessible through huge garage doors that need to be opened every time you come home. In most cases, the drivers are inconvenienced by having to get out of their vehicle to open the door before driving through the tunnel. And, then, of course, shutting the door behind them.

Thanks, but I'm happy to walk the four blocks to get public transportation!



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