Double parkers put UAE drivers in tight spot

A parked car blocks other vehicles in an Al Mushrif parking area in Abu Dhabi. Ravindranath K / The National

ABU DHABI // It is a common sight: supersized cars taking up two spots in mall car parks while others are left circling.

After all, why bother squeezing into one space when you can manoeuvre your four-wheel drive or pickup truck so comfortably into two?

“It’s a new car that has done 40,000km, and see the deep scratches on the door?” said Hamad, an Emirati who parked his Nissan Patrol across two spaces at Mushrif Mall.

“People hit their doors on it so hard you now see paint peeling off. In malls, parking is often a little bit tight and people must respect others’ cars.”

Last week, The National visited car parks at Mushrif, Al Wahda, Khalidiyah and Marina malls, looking for those taking more than their fair share of ground.

At Mushrif alone, 14 vehicles were parked across two spots on Monday evening.

The malls are not without blame, said one expert.

“One of the things that struck me about the design of parking garages in the UAE, especially the pre-2000 garages, is that they seem to be oriented towards mini cars,” said Glenn Havinoviski, head of a traffic management company.

“But in the UAE you see Emiratis and western expatriates driving SUVs and larger sedans, and even full-sized American pickup trucks.”

Drivers said they took up two spots to protect their cars from damage caused by doors opening or poor driving by others.

But there seemed to be little excuse for the Nissan Tiida and Mercedes sedan taking up two spots each at Al Wahda.

There were six cars using two parking spaces at Al Wahda Mall on Tuesday afternoon and evening.

Among them were a black Nissan Tiida, a white Nissan Patrol and a black GMC pickup truck.

At Khalidiyah Mall’s underground car park, a grey GMC Arcadia was parked across two spots on Monday afternoon.

SUVs, pickup trucks and sedans were either parked askew, off-centre or crossing the line at Marina Mall’s two underground car parks on the same day.

A white Toyota Corolla with a Dubai plate was parked over the line of a generous space at the underground car park at Carrefour, on Airport Road.

The owner of a shiny black GMC Sierra pickup truck parked diagonally in a tight spot, but one of its tyres rested on a pedestrian walkway.

On Tuesday afternoon, a silver grey GMC Acadia crossover vehicle was straddling two parking spaces.

There are only single lines between spaces in most UAE car parks, meaning a smaller margin of error, unlike many places in the West where there is a painted buffer of up to 30cm, said Mr Havinoviski, associate vice president of US traffic management company Iteris, which opened an Abu Dhabi office in 2011.

“It is sometimes almost impossible to avoid overlapping a space,” he said. “This drives me crazy at Al Wahda Mall, especially the old garage which is otherwise filled to capacity.”

Newer car parks in Abu Dhabi and Dubai malls are now designed with some degree of manoeuvrability for larger vehicles, compared with the older car parks in the capital’s central areas.

“Sadly, even with the newer lots that have more room, many drivers either don’t care about taking up two spaces or don’t trust other drivers to not scratch their vehicles,” Mr Havinoviski said.