It can be a really annoying feeling when you're on a walk, and you see a car brazenly parked over the pavement so there's barely any room for you to get past.
You may side-step to avoid touching the car, but if you've got a pram with you, then that becomes impossible and you have just two options. Either walk on the road - which is less than ideal - or try to squeeze through the gap.
One woman took to Reddit's 'Am I the a**hole' forum after admitting she'd scratched someone's car whilst trying to get past it, but defended herself by telling people that the car was parked over the pavement, with a gap which left "not enough room for a wheelchair."
The 31-year-old woman wrote: "I was on my daily walk with my five-month-old son and my dog. I take the same route, pretty much and today was no different. I was approaching a corner of the street I usually turn down and I'm assuming someone had family over because there were more cars than usual parked along the street and onto the pavement.
"These cars were half on the pavement with barely enough room to push my pram and definitely not enough room for a wheelchair, for example. Now I was pushing my pram and it was a squeeze between me and the cars but when I got to the last car I got stuck and rammed my pram through the gap (couldn't have been too hard because baby was still asleep after).
"Next thing I know I hear 'oi' so I turned around and this guy must've come out of the house and shouted to me that I scratched his car. I walked back and said where (he pointed out some scuffs along his wheel arch) I said well you shouldn't be parked on the pavement it's illegal and there must be enough room for wheelchairs, prams, etc.
"He started shouting really aggressively telling me I should pay for the scratches. I said he can't expect me to push my baby into a busy road because he wants to park on a FOOTpath with emphasis on the foot part. I refused to be shouted at in front of my son so I called him an a***hole and walked off.
"I do feel bad for scratching his car. It was a '22 plate Kia, I'm assuming brand new. It wasn't intentional at all, but still, don't park on the pavement!
"Anyway, I got home and my partner said I could've knocked on and asked him to move the car. And although he said he wouldn't have got aggressive he understands why he's annoyed his car got damaged?!
"So am I the a**hole for scratching this car and refusing to give details to pay for it? I'll sure be walking a different route in the future."
People defended the woman, agreeing that he shouldn't have been parked on the pavement.
One wrote: "Not the a**hole. You didn't intentionally scratch it, you squeezed past an illegally parked vehicle that was causing an obstruction. Imagine him going to his insurance. 'And this damage happened when it was parked where?'"
Someone responded: "And lets be honest here: how big of a scratch a pram can make?
"My brother was an okay driver, but good Lord he sucked at parking. We usually left our car in our grandfather's garage, which he also used as storage for his wood. So some scratches were not uncommon.
"Nothing a really good wax didn't fix or, at least, masked well enough to get by."
Another raged: "I find it absolutely absurd that he's claiming she somehow scratched up his car in a serious way with the pram. At the absolute most, there would be super light scuffing that would be super cheap, easy, and quick to just DIY fix (or at least cover up well enough that no one would ever notice it).
"There's NO way that her gently pushing the pram through the gap behind the car made any sort of significant SCRATCH in the paint or the metal.
"There's also no way to even prove that the scuffs were caused by the original poster. Tons of people end up with scuffs at the rear of their vehicles from other people being dumba**es in parking lots. And it can easily be days or weeks or months before the owner notices, because most of us aren't out here hyperanalysing the rear bumpers of our cars on a regular basis lmao.
"If there are any actual SCRATCHES on his car then it was 100% not the original poster and must've been there from something else, and he didn't notice until now."
What would you do in this situation? Let us know in the comments.
