Compact spaces are marked for a reason -- it's because they're smaller. However, SUV owners, not being content to pollute the world and take up more than a lane of traffic with their hunks of metal, often blithely park in a compact space, even though their cars are clearly hanging over the painted lines. If you get two or three in a row like this, the person at the other end probably couldn't park a motorcycle in the space remaining, and the other cars are subject to scratches,dings, etc. The solution is a car compactor, a traveling gadget that could be mounted on the back of a pickup rather like a tow truck mechanism. It has two hunks of metal that slide on either side of the car and >>>>SQUEEZE<<<< it until it fits in the space allotted.
-- arghblah, Nov 26 2000

Parking Space Increaser http://www.halfbake...20Space_20Increaser
Related idea. The people are clamouring for a device of this kind. [Monkfish, Nov 26 2000, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Unfortunately, the car compacter+pickup assembly would probably take up an excess of one parking space, rendering its user a hypocrite.
-- gastronaut, Jul 03 2002


Or you could clamp them. Either way.
-- NickTheGreat, Jul 03 2002


Rather than huge amounts of steel, you could have a set of high tensile winches, that you'd wrap around said vehicle and squeeze it at various points along it until it was the right width/length. These could be carried in a small, compact sized 2-seater van, and powered via a pto and hydraulic pump.
-- Skrewloose, Apr 02 2009


gastronaut: its user would be a hypocrite but a satisfied one, together with all the spectators.

I'm posting in the future a different idea in the same direction: donparkere app. The app with images that monitors people that park badly.

After getting warned a few times, the offenders are targeted by a staff of volunteers that promise to work legally and then find out who drives the car and where they stay. Then they film themselves contacting the person and showing them what people have to say about their behavior.

If you report a repeating offender, you get points. Users with a high score get prizes.
-- pashute, Apr 20 2023



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