Dear Rain,
I've lived a couple places before I moved to SF, but nowhere else have I seen people "save" parking spaces the way they do here.
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.
Thanks,
Willing to honor your customs, if they are indeed your customs
Dear WTHYC,
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!"
Not that I would, because, seriously, that's insane.
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.)
The question made me curious about the laws surrounding parking-spot-saving, and how the police might handle such a situation should they come upon it. So I asked a local police officer — and San Francisco native — Dustin Daza of SFPD's Park Station about it. Here's what he said.
It is illegal to do. If I saw someone saving a parking place, it would be a very low priority for me to get involved unless I thought it was a danger to that person. If someone complained about it, however, or we got a call, I would advise the "saver" that standing in the street is illegal. It's a violation of 21956(a) CVC, which is pedestrian on a roadway. The way the California Vehicle Code defines a roadway is from curb to curb, which includes parking spots. So basically, I would just tell the 'saver' that they need to move before writing them a ticket. I'm more spirit of the law about those things, as opposed to letter of the law. Parking spots belong to everyone. You can't call dibs on a public parking spot by sticking a human in the street. I'm a native San Franciscan, but I've never heard anyone say "this is how we do it in SF."
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.
Also, "the 415"? Ugh. Just no with that.
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.
In these Troubled San Francisco Times, there is a lot of talk about who was here when, and what that does (or doesn't) mean. In an effort to both assist newcomers and take long-time residents down memory lane, we present to you Ask a San Francisco Native, a column penned by SF native and longtime SFist contributor Rain Jokinen, which is inspired by a similar one on our sister site Gothamist, and is intended to put to rest all those questions only a native of this city can answer. Send yours here!
