Ute driver roasted over 'entitled' parking act at Melbourne shopping centre

A ute driver has been labelled 'self-entitled' over an arrogant park that has angered many Aussies.

A driver parked their dark blue Ford Ranger over three car spaces at Coburg North Village shopping centre, in Melbourne's inner north, on the weekend.

The image of the ute taking up the multiple car spaces was posted to social media where it has understandably infuriated people.

Although the poster acknowledged the shopping centre had a 'tight car park' social media users didn't hold back their disgust.

Many have branded the act as 'entitled' and 'selfish', with one user saying: 'A Ute driver with self entitlement. What a shock.'

Another commented: 'Park in one spot. Do your shopping and then f*** off home. That guy is a clown.'  

One user commented about all drivers of these types of vehicles.

'They don't ever understand where their car is on the road as well either. Never leave enough space,' they wrote.

Another was more in awe of the feat of actually finding empty car spaces at a shopping centre in the first place.

 'How'd he find three in a row there ? I can barely find one when I go,' they wrote.

It is believed the driver may have been 'protesting for change' with one social media user saying drivers of large vehicles are pushing for bigger spaces.

'They are currently lobbying for larger parking spaces to accommodate these cars. This is their form of protest,' they said. 

More than 50 per cent of cars sold in Australia in 2021 were SUV's, according to Budget Direct. 

To make room for the popular vehicles, Standards Australia believes a standard car park's length should be stretched by 20cm, with the width remaining the usual 2.2 to 2.6m. 

This would make car spaces in Australia a whopping 5.6m long.

Although this would stop larger vehicles swallowing multiple spaces, people believe this solution disregards the safety of others on the road.

These include pedestrians, cyclists and small car drivers who don't feel safe with SUV's and big utes on the road. It would also mean less parking spots available.

Monash University lecturer Julian O'Shea told Yahoo in August accommodating larger vehicles also means infrastructure changes. 

He prefers the idea of a higher tax on these type of cars.

'The question becomes, how do we use this space? If we want to make our car parks bigger, we get fewer of them, we lose space for bike lanes, we lose space for parks, we lose space for shops,' he said.

'Some ideas that different countries are using that we could look into are higher parking fees for these cars, which cause more damage to the road because they're so much heavier.'

Some on social media came up with a simpler solution with one saying: 'If you can’t park it, you can’t drive it,' 

Another commented: 'They’re not cars. They’re trucks. They should simply ban them from car parks.'