How careful are you opening your car door?

I’m pretty careful, and I tend to try and park away from the masses. Often I’ll park 4–5 spaces from anyway, but when I get back to the car it has been ‘surrounded’ by people who arrived later than I did and parked around me.

I went to the Chevy dealer and bought one of those little paint touch-up bottles, and a couple times a year I need to paint over some of the scratches that people have made.

People are such jerks.

My car is only one year old (just had the anniversary of the purchase), so I am very careful not to hit the doors on anything.

What would I have done in your situation? My assumption is if it’s loud enough to hear it, like you described it, it’s probably done some damage. I would have said “Let me see if there’s any damage.” Then I would have checked it right there in front of her. If she was walking away and there was damage, I’d have called her back. IF she just continued walking, I’d have called the cops. If I’m going to have insurance fix a ding, she or her insurance will be picking up the tab.

@Pachy: Did she do any damage?

I forgot to include this piece of info. I was driving a rental car forr the day. I was still opening my door carefully, but yes, I admit I probably would have been more aggressive with the woman had it been my own car.

Still, there was no damage. I guess I just needed to get my irritation with the woman off my chest. I just don’t have much patience with people who don’t take responsibility for their actions.

@Pachy: When I was about 12, my mom had a brand new car and I was sitting in it while she was in the supermarket. Some lady who was parked next to us came and opened her door and hit my mom’s car that I was sitting in. It did some major paint damage but at the time, I was too shy to get out and say something to the lady. I was resentful of my shyness afterwards, when I saw the damage. I will always remember that and now, won’t wait till it’s too late and I can’t do anything about it. I’ll confront a person when it happens.

I’m always careful, because I’m not a cretin.

But had I been in your position, I wouldn’t make a big deal about it, because frankly my car is 16 years old and has more than a few door-dings in it already. Not that it’s in bad shape, but it would be silly to make a federal case of one more to add to the collection.

I agree, @Seek, but my own car, which was in the shop for routine maintenance that day, is still new enough so that I try to avoid dings. It wasn’t so much the door bump that bothered me as the woman’s lack of basic civility. A simple “I’m sorry” would have completely mollified me.

I’m very careful as well and if it is a tight squeeze I put my hand out and cup it around the edge of my door as a buffer as I squeeze out. haha
It really is appalling how careless and reckless some people are. Even if the car next to me is an older car with dents and dings I still would never assume ” so what, it’s already a beat up old car.” My car is over 10 years old now and has a few dings and scrapes here and there, it still looks nice overall but I wouldn’t want someone just assuming that because I am driving a 12 year old car that a new scratch, scrape or ding is no big deal.

I’m careful, considerate and respectful of my things and even more so of other people’s things. I would not have even touched your car’s side with my door unless it had been completely unavoidable, and even then you would not have known unless you were inside the car or watching – and I’d still look to be sure things were okay.

On the other hand, it’s small stuff. I’ve seen it happen to my car – and even though it’s now 12 years old and has over 100,000 miles (and I bought it when it was 2 years old and already had over 20,000 miles and a few dings) – I didn’t even care that much when it was shinier and newer. Had that happened to me as you describe, I would have made a note of her, to be sure that I avoid her in the future when I can and park away from her if it’s at work or someplace where I might see her again (but the people I work with aren’t generally like that, either, so that’s kind of a moot point). And I also park at the far end of most parking lots to avail the space that’s generally open there (and to add more to my walking needs, because I do need the walk, after all).

I’ve also developed a specific routine for when I have to park next to someone. I try to make sure that I can park driver’s side to driver’s side and maximize that space between vehicles. So if the other guy is parked nose-to-curb, then I’ll back into my spot so our cars have my left side by side with his left, and I crowd the line on the other side of my car. (That means that there’s almost no space between my passenger side and the edge of the parking slot, but if the next guy pulls in nose-first into that spot, then we’re parked offside-to-offside, and those doors don’t need to be opened so much.) When the driver has max room to open his door (as I do), then there’s not much opportunity for a problem.

Very careful.

What’s tricky is when you live in a place that rarely has wind and you’re not used to keeping a grip on the door, the door can suddenly swing open if it happens to be a windy day. Also, in FL, we are very accustomed to parking on level ground, so when I’m on an incline, I have to remember to hold the door well of downhill is on my side of the car.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Yes, I am very careful! I don’t try to park right up at the front of the store, either, since I need the exercise.

That’s one of my pet peeves. And there are just too many variables as to why you get bumped. The one that really boils me up is the lot with the lines so narrow that nothing wider than a fat motorcycle can park with 10 inches to spare on either side. Then are the stereotypical reasons why you’re gonna get hit. Little kids in a hurry. Parking next to a filthy beat up clunker. And large or infirm people who need to open their own doors really far in order to enter or exit their vehicles, though these folks tend to be very gentle as they lay their door against your car to squeeze into their own.

Careful how I open it and where I park. You can often tell by how someone parks whether or not they’re careless. Never saw anyone hit my car with their door, though I’ve had my car bumped up against and bounced by a person just walking too close. And once someone came into where I was working and loudly asked who drove the white grand am. That was me and he tried to say that I parked too close to him and scraped his car with my door. I told him I hadn’t but he insisted that I had and called base security. I let him. Then when they came I had them speak with my chief who informed them that I had been there all night standing duty. He parked next to me on purpose, I guess because someone had customized his door and he wanted someone to pay. Or maybe it happened in a time and place he wasn’t supposed to be and didn’t want wifeypoo to find out.

Thanks, everyone, for your excellent comments. Reading through them and analyzing my feelings, I’ve concluded that my reaction to the incident had less to do with the door tap itself than with how disgusted I am about the incivility I see and hear all around me – exacerbated, certainly, by the current electoral season’s toxic environment.

I was having a hard time shaking off these negative feelings, but writing about it and reading your comments helped relaxed me – and as @ CWOTUS correctly notes above, a slightly tapped car door (a rental at that!) ain’t worth dwelling any longer on.

I always take great care, not just out of respect for the car’s owner but for the designers that first drew the contour of the door, the engineers that made the tooling for the door manufacture, the assembler that fitted the door, the robots that sprayed the door’s finish etc. etc.

Sadly, it seems others do not share in my respect.

When I decided to take one of my cars with me when I moved to Manhattan it started out cherry.

Now it looks like someone dropped it in a blender.

Thank you so much all you ignorant and selfish fucks.

@Pachy Don’t feel bad, I am the same way. You’d think that by the age of 56 I would cease to be shocked at others amazingly rude behaviors but because I just don’t operate that way I am still always stunned at what some people can say and do without so much as a backwards glance at their behaviors. My daughter is always reminding me ” Mom, people are assholes!” haha I guess it’s a case of reverse projection, instead of projecting my negativity onto others, which I never do.

I project my good qualities instead and then am shocked to have the opposite mirrored back. Aaah well, just bask in your own considerate ways. I have been coping with my emotionally moody housemate that projects her stress and PMS and issues on me and while it does bother me at times I just remind myself that I am the bigger person and have a large amount on emotional intelligence. It’s not personal, and these types behave the same with everybody.

I always fully insure a rental car.

This has gotten me out of more than one scrape.

So to speak.

yes i always look for passing cars and those on bicycles

I , as insane as it sounds, never have to be careful because of the low population and wide parking spaces here. However, when pulling into the garage with the dogs jumping around, I am super cautious.

One time when I was a kid, we parked down on the riverfront to (I believe) watch the fireworks for the 4th. Parked next to us was a family with 3–4 kids, and everyone kept getting in and out of the car. Every time they opened their car’s door, they banged our car.
Finally mom – sitting in the passenger seat – had enough. She opened her door and “Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam…” tagged the car next door. Then she just sat there looking straight ahead, like nothing unusual had happened.
There were no words exchanged, and they never banged the car again.

Ours was a company car, provided by the insurance company my father worked for, so it was principle.

@ibstubro : I would have had a hard time sitting there and not saying anything about them hitting my car door, even if I didn’t own the car. Even if they did no damage each time, it’s inconsiderate of them and the potential for damage is there.

I’m very careful about this. I park at the back of parking lots away from everyone else. I do it to keep people from dinging my car and because the walk is healthy. The strange phenomenon is that 95% of the time when I go back to my car, someone has parked right next to me. When my car was new I would park in the middle of two spaces. That worked. I only did it when parking spaces were aplenty. But I still think about that.

Did you understand that my mother, fed up with all the door bumping, opened her car door and banged the offending car several times, @jca?

Today the whole family car of us could be dead from gun retaliation.

I did understand, @ibstubro. I read everything you wrote. Again, as I said even if I didn’t own the car and even if they did no damage each time, it’s inconsiderate of them and the potential for damage is there. Once they screw up the car, even if it’s a rental car, there’s a headache. Even if your mom got her revenge by hitting their car and doing damage, it’s a headache. To me, easier to say to them “Excuse me, can you please stop hitting my car?” Make the kids aware, make the mom of the kids aware, and be done with the hitting and revenge.

@ibstubro – I love your mom.

You would not, @Seek, but I admit she did have her moments!