Yet another case of a car being damaged while the owner was away. In this case, a Glasgow woman was alarmed when she came back to her car, which had been parked legally in a residential street in East Kilbride, to find the windscreen wipers damaged, and a threatening note lodged on the windscreen. The note accused her of parking in the ‘wrong’ location, and stated that her tyres would be slashed if she did it again. 25 year old Gillian Woods was naturally alarmed at the sinister tone of the note, as she had parked perfectly legally in a free parking area, well away from any reserved resident’s parking places and not causing an obstruction to anyone.
The incident occurred just before Christmas 2015, and Ms Woods was forced to pay for the damage to her car, which was not ideal at this expensive time of year. She stated that she ‘couldn’t believe my eyes’ on seeing the note, as clearly someone had been observing her movements, which was chilling in itself.
Considerately Parked
Ms Wood had parked in a similar location only 3 times over a 2 week period, and was always considerate to residents and other car users when she parked. She made sure she didn’t park outside a resident’s property or blocked anyone’s drive with her car. The note accused her of ‘dumping’ her car for long periods of time in front of resident’s houses, and the writer stated that if it was seen within 200 yards of the current location, she would be paying for more than just windscreen wipers, the car’s tyres would be next to suffer damage.
Another part of the letter indicated that the writer had all day in which to damage the car, which must have made Ms Woods feel uneasy about leaving it anywhere near the area again. Since the incident, she has discovered that she was not the only victim of this threatening letter-writer, another car owner had also been threatened in this underhand way.
‘Shameful’ and ‘Disgusting’
Although Ms Woods was at liberty to park in that particular location at any time in the future, in this case the letter writer appears to have won a small victory, as she does not intend to park there again. However, as she stated, this was ‘shameful, and a ‘disgusting’ act during a season of goodwill, and that the writer had no ‘guts’ if they couldn’t approach her face to face.
It can certainly be extremely irritating when inconsiderate people leave their vehicles for long periods of time, parked in places that may cause obstructions or reduced visibility for residents, but this does not appear to be the case in this particular instance. Let’s hope she finds somewhere safer to park her car in the future.
