There’s a homeowner in Dusseldorf’s well-to-do Oberkassel neighborhood that came up with what might be one of the most expensive solutions do deal with the problem of people parking too close to his driveway: He bought two cars, just to keep them parked on either side of the driveway, like bookends.
Sure, the cars are just tiny Smart Cars, and used ones, from what I can tell, but the dude still bought two functional motor vehicles for the sole purpose of keeping them parked on a public road on either side of his driveway.
According to the machine-translation of this RP Online article, the issue wasn’t that he was tired of having his driveway blocked by cars, which would be clearly illegal, but that even with cars parked legally on either side, the owner of what looks like a modern five-story-plus-garage row house still felt that he didn’t have enough room to comfortably leave the driveway in what neighbors say is an SUV.
So, instead of buying a smaller car or just getting better, via practice, at backing out of his own driveway, the solution of getting two very short cars and using them to occupy the spots bracketing the driveway was implemented.
The Smarts seem to have been performing their guard duty for three years now, and it’s all legal. According to Dusseldorf’s Traffic Management Office, as long as the cars are able to be driven away if needed, there’s no restriction saying they can’t stay parked there.
Neighbors report the cars were only gone once, both together, likely to go renew their registration or something.
Does he bother to keep the batteries charged?
Reshaping the urban landscape to your own desires via the use of Smart cars is an underexplored option for a nation’s wealthy patrons. Smarts with paid drivers could be used to block spots in locations you plan to go to during the day—send them out the night before to get the sweet spots, drivers sleep in the car and leave when you show up!
You could use the powers for good, too dispensing Justice ForTwo as you shut down human-trafficking rings by blocking the evildoers in their homes with an army of parked Smart cars!
This guy’s on to something. Not something big, but still.