Russians Do it the Hard Way

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We are always amazed how people park their cars in our apartment complex. Often cars are parking others in with absolutely no way for them to get out. I have no idea what drivers do when their car is parked with someone right in front of them. We're just glad that we don't have a car to deal with here.

This summer, we think that the complex owner tried to solve this problem. A couple men were in the parking areas to paint white stripes so cars would know where to park.


There was one problem, though, when they were doing this job. They never asked the drivers to move their vehicles. The result is that some of the parking spaces are very wide and some are very narrow. It really didn't matter where he painted the strips at all. People still park wherever they feel like parking. 
Partially painted line
It was very interesting to watch the men work on this project. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take a picture, but the two men measured the stripes out very carefully - as far as length goes - and placed masking tape around both sides of the white stripe. They then painted the stripes with paint brushes.

It was so funny to watch them take so much time to do the taping and painting, knowing that the parking spaces were different widths depending where cars were parked that day. In the instance on the left, they must have painted right up to the bumper of the car that was there and then quit.
Handicapped parking?

They did manage to paint a couple handicapped parking spaces in one location, but it doesn't look like people pay attention to that either. Only the car on the right has a sticker in the window.


 To this day, we have no idea why those men were paid to do the striping job. Clearly, the drivers here don't pay any attention to where the stripes were painted. And it's a good thing because some of the spaces are wide enough for a car and a half while others are too small for just about any vehicle.

I guess that the saying "Life is not meant to be easy for Russians" applies to their parking spaces as well.

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