title: Ending Parking Space Saving
contenttype: article
publication: Jeff Kaufman's Writing
published: 2026-02-09T13:00:00+00:00
sourceurl: https://www.jefftk.com/p/ending-parking-space-saving
word_count: 626
Shoveling out a parking spot is a pain, and many snowy places have a
culture where when you leave you put some kind of " space saver "
(aka "parking chair", "dibs", etc) to reserve the space for when you
come back. While you don't have a legal right to the space, there's
common knowledge that if you park in someone's spot you're running a
significant risk of them vandalizing your car. Aside from depending on the implicit threat of property damage, it's a
bad system: it only works if everyone uses cars with the same
commuting pattern. My sister works in early
childhood intervention , which is one of several professions where
you're traveling to people's houses during the day. In neighborhoods
where space savers are common, there can be many open spots, but each
one is saved. Moving the space saver, even just for the duration of
the visit, risks a slashed tire. courtesy of kgnixer Very reasonably, they're prohibited in many cities, including Cambridge and Somerville ,
but that isn't enough to disrupt the culture in areas where it's
widespread. It's also hard to opt out as an individual. If everyone else is
saving their spaces and you don't, then when you get back your spot
will very likely be taken. What would disrupt the culture, though, would be the mayor making an
announcement. Now, mayors already make announcements about this, but
they're things like "please don't use space savers." That doesn't
work: it won't sway the intended audience. Instead, the announcement
should target the people who don't like the space saver system, but
today they leave space savers alone because they don't want some
unknowing stranger to face unjustified retaliation: "if you see a
space saver, please take it out of the spot". This gives social cover to start moving things. You're not a
troublemaker, you're an upstanding citizen. The mayor doesn't need
many people to take action: just a few enthusiastic people can
thoroughly break the link from "there's a car parked in the spot I
saved" to "they must have moved my space saver" and hence to "and so I
should vandalize their car." The announcement makes it common
knowledge that this is no longer a reliable link. The mayor, as a centralized elected representative, is a good way to
do this, though it would also be possible for a group of people, or
even one really dedicated person, to do it. What you need to do is
remove a lot of space savers, and make sure it's well known that the
people removing space savers aren't the people parking in the
previously-saved spots. Possibly an active group that put discarded
space savers nearby with a note taped on saying "removed by the Space
Unsavers" could do it, though you need to keep the object close enough
that the spacer finds it and sees the note while also moving it far
enough that the parker likely didn't realize they were parking in a
formerly saved spot. I did a little looking to see if anyone had tried this, and the
closest I came was cities coming around to collect them, often as part
of trash pickup or some number of hours after lifting a snow
emergency. This doesn't work very well: it's much easier to work
around a single predictable pass than individuals removing objects
throughout the day, and it also legitimizes using space savers up
until the announced pickup. Does anyone know about anyone trying this? Did it work? If I lived
in a part of town with an illegal and unpopular—yet
persistent—space saver culture, I'd be tempted to try the
organize-neighbors version. Or perhaps start by suggesting it to the
mayor. Comment via: facebook , mastodon , bluesky