Why? You could have parked properly
This one begs the question: Why? You could have parked properly? But hey, this is Bucharest. There’s a photo on Wikipedia of Casa Scanteii in 1971 – one car out front – much better! But seriously, why are people driving here? I take the Metro to Aviatorilor and walk across the park – though a stop at Piata Presei Liberie would be nice admittedly…
Loads more badly parked cars here.
@jjoyce: I always like to give people the benefit of the doubt, and there’s no doubt that finding a parking space hell, any space one could plausibly fit a car into in Bucharest can be a challenge, but this was taken on my way into the office, so your scenario might be a bit less likely. In any case it would be nice to be able to walk on the pavement without worrying about vehicular obstructions…
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@Davin, Geronimo: I see… I think I should spend some time in the West, somewhere outside the touristic routes and interact with the Western society; this would probably give me another perspective and I could make a comparison myself.
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Gee, and if I said I know who took this pic!!!!
would you not want to kill the (English)man ?!!?
I can help…
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@Davin: That ‘art’ book is pure comedy.
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Parmalat:
This is what British DJ and journalist Tom Wilson who has lived in Bucharest since 2002 just told Vice Magazine re: the culture here in Romania:
–For those readers that know nothing about Romania or art, tell us about art in Romania. How is it different to art in the UK?–
“The scene in Romania is close and compact for a very good reason – mainstream culture in Romania has become more and more unpleasant lately. The rush of new money during the boom since the start of the decade meant that the place started looking like the American dream gone wrong. Status starts to mean the size of the car you drive, and all the bars suddenly decided that what they really needed was a huge plasma screen on every wall. Most of the clubs look like Chinawhite on a bad LSD trip, full of fat mafia-looking guys and scantily clad girls listening to – rather inexplicably – minimal techno. The good thing to come out of this was to bring the arts scene together. When there are only a few places you can go, it brings people together. Plus, there’s a good chance that the man at the next table is a Cannes-winning director”.
http://www.viceland.com/wp/2009/10/you-dont-know-enough-about-art-in-romania/
So, sorry, but east Europeans because of the severe economic oppression of Communism and subsequent transition to a market economy have often perverted the capitalism aesthetic. Sure, people everywhere like nice things, but I had never encountered fitze until I came here. Fizte are nouveaux riche, not the rich. Bucharest cafes, night life bear no resemblance to my times in London, Paris or New York and I have lived in all cities.
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Parmalat and Geronimo:
Because of the severe economic oppression under Ceausescu, Romanians have reacted with wanting the very best of various things like cars. I was in New York 2 weeks ago and you simply do not see Mercedes AMG cars and BMW M series so much. Sorry, but you don’t. Of course in any city there are those with nice cars and women chasing men with money. But in Bucharest–and in other Eastern European cities–there is an obsession with flaunting one’s wealth. People in West Europe and America have never been without. People in Romania have indeed been without. So, it is totally more extreme here. In America nothing stands out very much. A guy drives a top of the range Mercedes and you know he is a banker. Here, I see 20 somethings driving 100,000 Euro cars when their parents drove Dacias and something just doesn’t add up.
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@Parmalat. You are right of course. the west is full of people who show off and throw their wealth around. And full of girls who chase guys for their money and lifestyle. Davin is either being naive or perhaps is merely exaggerating to make a point.
Romania can be a bit extreme at times though
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You know, a few years ago (more than 20) there was a joke: a Romanian guy who ran to the West once entered a brothel. And he asked the mistress to bring him a fat woman with a moustache. And the mistress asked him why would he want a woman like that. And the guy would tell the mistress – “because I miss my country so much”.
The Romanian society changed a lot in these 20 years and obviously the model came from the Western society so it’s quite hard for me to understand how come that in the West all the vices of the Romanian society don’t exist when they actually should be amplified..
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@Davin, Craig, Geronimo: don’t girls in the West care about a guy’s car? Aren’t they materialistic at all?
They should be, after all – Versace, Armani, Mercedes etc… are from the West not from Romania so this type of shiny-metrosexual-materialistic-glamour life was invented there not here.
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Parmalat,
yes, Romanians need to get over using a car as a status symbol. The metro, buses, trams, walking, biking are actually quite fine ways of getting around. Romania needs to outgrow this infantile phase of being obsessed with cars and consumer goods and start acting like a grown up country. A Mercedes does not make you God or any better than a guy with a Dacia 1310. We all are subject to the same fate in the end: death.
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Let’s face it, the city was not designed for such a high number of cars. And it will only get worse unless something happens. I already started to only drive during nighttime, day traffic adds unnecessary stress.
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As Chuckk points out, part of the oddball nature of Romania these days is getting Christmas all at once. I mean there was no contraception for 20 years and then there is every kind you could ever want (hence the continuing sexual revolution here amongst young women), there were just Dacia 1310a and now you can get the most tricked out BMW/Mercedes/Audi/Porsche you can imagine, there were fixed salaries and now you can make millions if you know the right people. This sort of pendulum change would mess anyone up. Such drastic differences in way of life in so short a time are not normal. Back where I am from in the US, little has really changed since my childhood in the 1980s. We have internet now, but that’s about it. There’s always been contraception since whenever it became available, some people drove nice cars then and some do now, some people made good money then and some do now. It’s actually all quite boring in the US–that’s why I moved to Bucharest
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I had to laugh when I read this today: http://blog.taragana.com/e/2009/10/26/shriver-in-trouble-for-parking-violation-51347/
In Bucharest no one could care less if you drive and talk on your mobile or park in an emergency zone. Are there ‘emergency’ zones?! ok, maybe you can’t park right in front of the new malls, but anywhere else I have never seen a policeman approach anyone. Actually, where are the police?! In America there is such a high police presence and they mean business–you can’t pay them off. Try doing that and you’ll probably get an even higher fine. I’m not kidding. My interactions with US cops have been the worst experiences of my life along with various situations here in Bucharest with people (but not Romanian cops). In America if you even have a wheel outside the painted parking lines on the street side, you can get a ticket. This sort of enforcement makes everyone pay attention and most follow the rules. The reason everything is chaos here is because of too few police, lack of enforcement and the fact that you can bribe your way out of so many things.
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The police don’t care about traffic laws and the Secret Service (whom I swear are following me as the same guy stares at me in the eye almost every day here in the center out of one of those blue BMW 530s. Last night they were strangely parked outside of where I was getting pizza in piata Amazei eyeing me. Was Basescu in up in some apartment?!) dropped a machine gun out the door of one of their BMWs near the University
This simply is not professional(!) Would make the US Secret Service laugh: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=334_1177145191
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My closest main road (Strada Tunan, near Stefan Cel Mare Metro) is not subject to this problem. I can guarantee that no cars have been illegally parked on it for the last 4 months.
And why? How can I be so lucky? What makes IT so special?
Well the answer is so head smackingly simple you’ll all kick yourselves that you didn’t think of it first….Just dig the road up, all of it, including the pavements if you think it’s necessary (it nearly always is!). Then leave the entire road looking like a bomb site for as long as necessary, simple and effective.
This solution also has the added benefit of providing an amusing sport for all those lucky people that NEED to use this cheeky little thoroughfare because traversing over the rocky, derelict, moonscaped catastrophe of a former road takes patience, skill and determination. That, we all cry, must surely be a GOOD thing?
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This has been my #1 problem with this country since arriving 2 years ago. I once walked on a car that was against a building, blocking my path. The driver was there
I’ve since realized Sibiu is not like this, and Brasov not as much.
In Bucharest, on Eforie, between the police and the primaria for sector 5, they tore up the entire street and all the sidewalks a little over a year ago. They replaced the sidewalks with far WIDER sidewalks, and now one side is full of cars completely on the sidewalk. The side of the police station.
Buses, hmm. I ride them all the time, and quite often 2 or even 3 for the same route come within 30 seconds, and for the other routes, nada. Being able to sit down is an exaggeration sometimes.
Parking lots/garages would be great. I don’t doubt that some of the owners of these protected buildings, which they are not allowed to demolish, would love to build some garages. In the states, I’m always sad when I hear a place I loved as a kid has become a parking lot, but that’s because we have plenty already.
This is only one of the ways in which Romania has had a huge influx of modern conveniences, without the generations of adaptation some of us in the West got. I had a color TV, then a Playstation, then a car, then a PC, then the internet; many Romanians got access to all those things at the same time. That’s how it seems to me, anyway.
And yes, I agree- honest, motivated police would make a huge difference in all of this.
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I love walking through the parking lots here and seeing the ingenious ways that people find to park badly. I think they stay awake at night and invent new ways to mess up parking for everyone. At least this guy is in a parking spot. Here in Iasi, they are few and far between… I still can’t understand why the city planners make the sidewalks 5ft wide but don’t allow parking on the street, so people just end up parking on the sidewalks. But I agree with everyone who says the police need to enforce the laws. This would generate some much needed revnue for the sities and also get a lot of bad drivers off of the roads.
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Bus lanes, and more frequent buses, should be a no brainer. In a sop to drivers, however (and to make bus lanes an easier sell to all) I would also do away with trams completely, and replace them with buses. At some intersections trams cause more harm than good.
But bus lanes would be no good unless there were heavy penalties for cars driving in them. That is, the police would have to do its job, or an extensive system of cameras installed around the city that could automate fines etc.
And that, unfortunately, is the flaw in the plan.
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@Radu: this is not Romania, this is human beings – everywhere the same! The only difference to (some) other countries is, that there the police is commited to executing the law.
I think the problem is, that there is an overall parking-lot problem in town as we all know. Not enough space for way too many cars. So people have to park in an illegal way all the time (on the pavement, on the crosswalk..) so everybody (including the police) got used to it and finally kind of even excepted the rule-braking..
The only solution to this dilemma I see is: improve public transportation! Drastically! Close down EVERY first lane on EVERY street with more than one lane for individual traffic and use it exclusively for public transport (buses). Double the number of buses. Hire more police personal and fine everybody a huge sum violating these traffic rules.
Buses would be faster than individual cars, they would not be that crowded, you could even sit down. A lot of people would leave their cars at home and use the buses, trams.. to commute to work.
Pavements could finally be used to WALK on them again!
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I’ve often been ticked off too at people who seem to park like jerks and I’ll even leave a note on their windshield communicating my displeasure with their apparent rudeness and jerkiness. Then one time I was forced to park in a rather dorky angle, taking up a couple of parking spaces with the back end sticking out a bit too much, because of the way some other jerk had parked THEIR car. But then I thought, maybe they were forced to park that way because of some other jerk just as I was having to do. So, I’m not saying that’s what’s going on in this picture but who knows for sure? Previous parked cars may have forced this wacky angle and then those cars left leaving this one sticking out like a sore thumb. Who knows who was the first jerk?
Just another way of maybe looking at things.
Carry on…
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Why? simple. because no one cares!! police does shit about bad parked cars. drivers give a shit where they park or if that affects ANYONE around their beloved fuckin car. if you catch the guy with the car in the photo and ask him WHY he parked that way, i bet 100% he doesnt know. i bet he doesn’t even know why he’s on earth.
you want romania? there you have it!
…i’m missing my life in switerland!
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