The passive aggressive note left on your vehicle to inform you of the crime against humanity you have committed is a rite of urban passage. In small towns, they bake you cookies, knock on your door and ask you nicely to move your International Harvester off their lawn. On Capitol Hill, they leave a mean note. Sometime this works for tagging, also.
But in this incident culled from the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct reports from last week, one such note went far beyond mean.
Victim came to the East Precinct on 2-24-09 at 0930 to report that an unknown person left a threatening note pinned to the seat of his XXXX Vespa Gran Tourismo scooter. Victim had parked his scooter on the street, in the XXX block of XXXX on 2-23-09 at approx. 2100 hrs, when he returned to it on 2-24-09 at 0900, he found the note which said “You greener-than-thou sanctimonious retard: Take up an entire car-sized parking space with this scooter again and you’ll be shopping for a new tire … ” Victim said that this is the second similar note he has found on his scooter. Victim retained original note.
Parking on many parts of the Hill is surely a drag but be nice, neighbors, and keep your passive aggressive noting passive, please.
Details, location redacted to protect the innocent
It’s kind of funny and sad at the same time how someone can leave a note with big bad macho posturing, and at the same time cower behind the curtain of anonymity.
capitol hill scooter owners should band together one day and try and take up all the “car spaces” on that particular block with exactly one scooter in each space. i’m guessing that the note writer from above would totally blow a gasket.
what a douche bag.
why do you create these posts as if your opinion is the only one that counts? it’s like you’re talking to an audience that you think all agree with your opinion. assert if you will, but there is also some element of common sense and common courtesy not being exhibited by said scooter owner. (btw, not saying that the idle tire threat was warranted, but anyway…)
HC – the only opinion in this post is that the note leaver was overly aggressive, there is no judgement there about how the scooter should’ve parked.
In somewhat related news, I saw a smartcar on First Hill getting a ticket for parking sideways in a parking spot, like this…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/schneelocke/358978171/
damned if you do, damned if you don’t i guess.
not even scooters are targeted. I have a scooter now but a few years ago I had a smaller car. I live on Summit(Cap Hill) and found a spot that a motorcycle had parked in 1/2 space for a car. I’m not stupid there was space for my car so there I left it overnight. The motorcycle I guess left later that night or morning but that space could not fit a car. So, I got this mean ass note saying I was selfish in taking two spots and not leaving space for another. So, I did what every eastcoaster would do, I ripped it up and said “man, he can suck it” and drove off to work.
Life in the (not really) Big city people – just deal with it!
this is how they park it in Europe…owner should not get a ticket
“but there is also some element of common sense and common courtesy not being exhibited by said scooter owner”
Maybe, but, you have absolutely no way of knowing this, right? Perhaps you witnessed said scooter owner yourself (and maybe even wrote the note?). More likely, for all you know, the scooter squeezed in between two parked cars, and then, only after the cars moved, did it appear that the scooter occupied an “entire car sized parking space”.
Scooter owners put up with undeserved aggression for just this scenario quite often, and that’s exactly why the threatening post-it-note so easily induces a collective eye-roll on behalf of the scooter population.
And, I can’t believe I have to point this out, but would this situation have occurred had the parking space been occupied by a full-size car? This question (and the car/scooter double-standard) should be examined by anyone before criticizing the scooter owner.
At least they left only a threatening note. When some over adventurous people decided to tag the couple of blocks by my apartment, they decided to tag my scooter seat and fully spray paint in my rear view mirrors with yellow paint.
How is this acceptable and why can’t the police do something about it?
you make no sense! He is reporting what happened and his opinion is for people to try to be nice and to ones “passive aggressive noting passive” This is the opinion of all… Scooters pay tabs, they have to pay for parking like regular car owners and pay taxes to the city. We cannot park on the sidewalk as it is illegal. And, it is very legal to park in a space for either car or motorcycle. It IS illegal to tamper or vandalize vehicles whether be car, scooter or motorcycle. Car owners are not higher on the parking priority than anyone else. Scooter owner parked it legal but the person leaving the passive agressive note is a coward. Until the city opens up spaces specifically to scooters, we will park in spaces where FIRST COME FIRST FRAKKEN SERVED!
so there!
I have been with people that have became very very angry over the parking of scooters/motorcycles but I try to explain to them that when they originally parked it was probably acceptable but it is not until a car leaves that it makes the scooter driver look bad like he is taking up an entire car spot.
…that this happened to and I have never seen him take up a full, car-sized space when parking his scooter (just to clarify things).
I park my scoot in a WHOLE slot when I park; scraw the ‘tard who thinks that their car is more deserving. They don’t say boo when I’m nearby, 6’2″, 240#, and a really bad attitude helps, though.
no one said it was illegal, or the car was more deserving. i take the point about the scooter being there through multiple car cycles, leaving uneven spaces, but my original point was that everyone — car owners and scooter owners (i’m not taking sides here), should be thoughtful when parking. we have so little on-street parking that we all just need to get along.
btw, i’m not sure how a note is passive aggressive — what did you expect them to do — wait around for the scooter owner to return?? at least they made their point known (“mean-ness” and all).
you sound self-centered and entitled. i encourage you to think through the persona you’re projecting there, neighbor.
“passive-aggressive” is just a meme that’s been attached to people in Seattle. it’s almost always used incorrectly anyway.
people in seattle are often unsociable. that’s NOT the same thing as passive-aggressive.
leaving a note is also not really passive-aggressive. although assuming that a person parked to take up two spaces without knowing whether the person did it intentionally or not IS a dick move.
I’ve never seen a town full of so much self righteousness.
Who leaves a note? Are you really so full of yourself you think anyone actually gives a damn?
Weird…….
I park again in the same spot. I put a remote hidden cam and bust up asshole messing with my scoot.
who cares who parks where i have never ever seen a sign that said cage parking only
so the poor baby in the cage had his head so far up his rectum that it isnt even funny and he had to whine and cry because he had to walk just a bit farther
last thing i heard parking was first come first serve unless there is a sign designating it for something
so what if its a scoot motorcycle or 30000 lbs truck as long as it fits in the spot
the rectal cavity that left the note take the time to think that the person on the scoot may have a cage also and they would have taken the spot if they had decided to drive instead of ride maybe the person that left the note needs to get a scoot them self and see how calming scooting is
If there is a safe, legal, and nearby spot for me to park my motorcycle that is not the size of an entire spot, I will park there. Otherwise, I park any where there is a damn spot (full sized or not)! I have the same right to a spot as anyone else, and there is nothing illegal or inconsiderate about doing so. Besides, if I didn’t ride a motorcycle, I’d have a car and would be still taking up the same spot.
Pinning a note to the seat of a Vespa would likely damaged the seat. I would expect a new seat for a Vespa Granturismo to be at least $200 dollars. For reference, the Vespa Granturismo costs $5,300 dollars, has a 200cc engine, and is capable of highway speeds. It’s a big ass scooter.
Last summer, I had a woman in a car get red-faced mad and yell at me to move my motorcycle to the sidewalk so she could park her car where I was parked. Duh, it’s not legal to park a motorcycle on the sidewalk in CapHill you dumbass.
I witnessed a guy drag a scooter from a legal parking spot into the street so the car owner could park. I have recently noticed a lot of motorcycles and scooters in CapHill with their seats slashed. I have also seen several scooters laying on their sides, damaged, after being knocked over. Even with the smaller less expensive scooters, getting knocked over and maybe crushed by some goofball trying to parallel park may mean a $2,000 dollar out-of-pocket expense to get it repaired (compared to a minor “ding” on a car fender). Another point, when a Vespa takes a “whole parking spot” good chance several more scoots and motorcycles will be parking there shortly to avoid the risk of parking between cars.
My current motorcycle costs $9,900 dollars. My previous motorcycle was about $8,000 dollars but I sold it after a truck backed over it causing roughly $6,000 dollars in damage. The insurance covered the cost but the steering never felt right after that so I sold it back to the dealer who did the repairs at a substantial loss. Explain to me why I’m expected to squeeze my new $9,900 motorcycle between two cars and take the risk of having my motorcycle damaged or destroyed. Considering the fact that we are talking about CapHill; the cars are often busted-up piles of junk, the owners don’t have insurance, and because they drive worthless garbage they really don’t care what they hit.
CapHill needs designated motorcycle/Vespa parking. I’m willing to bet that CapHill has one of the highest densities of scooters of any city in the country. The local Vespa dealer in Queen Anne is a major retailer and the local Honda dealership in CapHill (prior to closing shop last week) consistently had the #1 highest scooter sales of any Honda dealership in the country year-after-year. Not only would designated motorcycle/Vespa parking provide a safe place for motorcycles and scooters to park but you can put a dozen Vespas in the space that three cars would occupy, thus freeing up other spaces for automobiles.
How about you Vespa and motorcycle riders emailing the City Council and letting them know there is a serious need for designated parking.
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Seattle City Council
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tim.burgess@seattle.gov
sally.clark@seattle.gov
richard.conlin@seattle.gov
jan.drago@seattle.gov
jean.godden@seattle.gov
bruce.harrell@seattle.gov
nick.licata@seattle.gov
richard.mciver@seattle.gov
tom.rasmussen@seattle.gov
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