Download Driver San Francisco Save Game
David
I'm talking about how someone will stand in the middle of a public, street parking space (metered or unmetered, parallel or perpendicular) to "save" it for a friend who is presumably on their way to the area.
Is this really a San Francisco thing? A guy was doing this as I looked for parking in the Inner Sunset the other day, and when I said "hey, man, this is not cool" he said "that's how we do it in the 415, ask anyone who's from here!" So I am.
First, a few caveats. Since I've never lived anywhere but San Francisco, and haven't done much driving anywhere else, I can't really attest to the prevalence or lack thereof of parking-space-saving in other cities. Second, I didn't start driving until I was in my 30's, and am not a strong parallel parker.
But I will admit to doing it, once. I was in a car with two other people. I believe it was in North Beach, on a weekend evening. We saw the spot across the street, but there was no way an (illegal) U-turn couldn't be made, so the driver had to wait at the light to make the U-turn there. I jumped out, and ran across the street to stand in the space. I believe the whole thing took maybe two minutes, tops, and no one tried to park in it while I was standing there, so I didn't get the chance to yell, "That's how we do it in the 415, bitch!"
A fellow SF native addressed this question on Yelp Answers (of all places) several years ago, and his take was that it was bad form if you're standing in a spot waiting 10 or 15 minutes for someone to arrive, but, "I could maybe see attempting to claim possession if your friend was within a half block of the spot." But it should be noted, by way of warning, there was an incident in 2006 in which a 19-year-old man was fatally stabbed over this very practice a friend was standing in a parking spot on Geary in the Inner Richmond saving it for him, another car pulled up and parked in it, physically knocking him out of it, and the 19-year-old came back, found the spot taken, got into a fight with the guys in the second car, and ended up dead.
I asked ten other locals about saving parking spots. Some of them were natives, others long-term residents. Almost all of them admitted to doing it at least once, while those who didn't said "What? No! I would never do that! That's terrible!" Those who did admit to doing it did so with a bit of embarrassment, conceding that it is a pretty shitty thing to do. They also wanted to assure me that if someone drove up wanting the spot before their friend got there, that they'd totally relinquish it.
The only story I heard of parking-spot-saving and standing one's ground involved my dad, in the 1970's. He was the driver, and his friends held a spot while he circled a block in Chinatown. When he got to the spot he found his friends arguing about it with the driver of another car. Eventually that guy gave up and drove off, and my dad got the spot... only to have the driver of that rival car end up sitting in front of them at the very Chinatown movie theater they were going to. (No lives were lost, and the movie was viewed without incident.)
As we all know, parking in San Francisco can be the absolute worst, and desperate times sometimes call for desperate measures. But there is no unwritten rule followed by everyone "from here" that it's totally OK to save a spot by standing in it.
Rain Jokinen was born and raised in San Francisco and, miraculously, still calls the city home. Her future plans include becoming a millionaire, buying a condo complex, and then tearing it down to replace it with a dive bar. You can ask this native San Franciscan your questions here.
Citing possible suspect identification issues, San Francisco's Public Defender Jeff Adachi assisted the man accused of stabbing a California Highway Patrol officer register a plea of not guilty Tuesday, as a crowd of
Cari will always live on, in my heart and the hearts of her family and friends and in the pages of history. She was a remarkable child, and, thanks to the work of thousands of volunteers when MADD was grass roots, we saved thousands and now hundreds of thousands of lives. I know she would be proud.
May Cari memory be eternal. May God always provide you and your family the strength and comfort to continue your positive avocation.
I was just hit by a drunk driver 8 days ago. I was parked on my HD trike and a 28yr old drunk driver came off the road and ran into the back of my trike pushed me 1 block through 2 mailboxes to then release me rear end off her bumper and veered back on the road leaving my trike to flip and send me 500ft backwards before landing. She left the scene hence a witness chased her with Sheriff and caught her. She blew a .288 and it was 11:30 in the morning.
No bodily injury,PIP not her once rodeo and she is a mother of a young boy.
I am alive and recovering however I am looking to advocate
NO DRINKING AND DRIVING.
Cari did the same for me when I started Barrett. I had just moved here from the Los Angeles area and was extremely shy. She lived a few house away from me and I was with her brother Travis, when we found out she passed away. It was absolutely devastating. I still live in the same house, pass by the same street, and visit Cari in the Fair Oaks Cemetery on occasion.
FILE - Matt Grigsby, senior program engineer at Otto, takes his hands off the steering wheel of a self-driving, big-rig truck during a demonstration on the highway, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2016, in San Francisco. Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed a bill that would have required human drivers to be onboard self-driving trucks, a measure that union leaders and truck drivers said would save hundreds of thousands of jobs. The legislation vetoed Friday, Sept. 22, 2023, night would have banned self-driving trucks weighing more than 10,000 pounds (4,536 kilograms), vehicles from UPS delivery vans to massive big rigs, from operating on public roads unless a human driver is on board. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar, File)
FILE - Employees stand next to self-driving, big-rig trucks during a demonstration at the Otto headquarters, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2016, in San Francisco. California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday, Sept. 22, 2023, has vetoed a bill to require human drivers on board self-driving trucks, a measure that union leaders and truck drivers said would save hundreds of thousands of jobs in the state. Union leaders and truck drivers had said the measure would save jobs. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar, File)
FILE- Teamsters union members hold signs urging Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign Assembly Bill 316, which would require in-person human supervision of self-driving vehicles weighing over 10,000 pounds, at the state Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., on Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023. Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed a bill Friday, Sept. 22, 2023, that would have required human drivers to be onboard self-driving trucks, a measure that union leaders and truck drivers said would save hundreds of thousands of jobs. There are about 200,000 commercial truck drivers in California, according to Teamsters officials. (Paul Kitagaki Jr./The Sacramento Bee via AP, File)
FILE - A truck sits as California truck drivers, union leaders, and lawmakers rallied outside the state Capitol in Sacramento, on Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023. California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday, Sept. 22, 2023, has vetoed a bill to require human drivers on board self-driving trucks, a measure that union leaders and truck drivers said would save hundreds of thousands of jobs in the state. (AP Photo/Sophie Austin, File)
FILE - Don Burnette, senior staff engineer at Otto, checks the software on a computer in the back of a self-driving, big-rig truck during a demonstration at the Otto headquarters on Thursday, Aug. 18, 2016, in San Francisco. California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday, Sept. 22, 2023, has vetoed a bill to require human drivers on board self-driving trucks, a measure that union leaders and truck drivers said would save hundreds of thousands of jobs in the state. Union leaders and truck drivers had said the measure would save jobs. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar, File)
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