ORIGINAL: Mark25

The simple solution is to have a "daily driver" that you can park in public lots, movie theaters, etc., for long periods of time and not worry about the other idiots out there. For those places, I drive the Blazer and I have an excellent relatioship with my Dentwizard Tech (whom I've used for the past 12 years). People are basically jeolous and don't care about their cars...maybe in the year 2225 there will be a "force field" invented to protect your "flying car."

ORIGINAL: ericw2000

Here's my story... I live at a T intersection, and have to park 2 of my cars in the street. There's a school bus stop right on the corner, and the bus turns left to go past my house, which is on a narrow street. In IL, school buses have to have this yellow stick that prevents people from walking in front of the bus when it stops.

Shortly after we got my wife's van, I noticed a tiny dent in the back door, just above the bumper. A couple months later I noticed another one, and later I noticed one on my Expedition. A week after I got my mustang, it was parked in front and we heard a crunch and saw the bus backing away from my new car. I ran out and didn't see any obvious damage so I let it go (the bus sped away before I could get out there, but I got the bus number), and my wife took the car to take my daughter to school. A half hour later I left for work and noticed all the yellow plastic transfer on the back of my new mustang, and a couple scratches in the paint. We called the police right away and notified the bus company. The officer came out and noticed the car was warm and wasn't happy that we drove somewhere after the incident. Then the bus company came to the police station and they measured the arm, and the officer came back to my house and measured the scratches and said there was no way it could have been the bus. I was really pissed! I found a school bus that afternoon and saw that the plastic arm was flexible, and called the officer back but no dice. Fortunately I was able to buff the yellow marks off, and there's one scratch visible still. For a couple weeks after the incident, my wife stood on the porch and watched the bus, and every day it turned the other way which would be a good solution. As soon as my wife stopped standing on the porch, they went back to their old tricks.

Short of installing a video camera or standing on my porch every day, there seems to be nothing I can do about this idiot bus driver. I cleaned out the garage so my Mustang isn't out there, but my wife's van and my new CX-9 are still there for when school starts.