Why I never want a car I care about in NYC

Dings, scratches, broken tail lights, busted side-view mirrors...
We've seen all off that and more on both of the cars we have had in NY. Between the parallel street parking, double parking and cars whizzing down the neighborhood streets at obscene speeds, it's bound to happen. Then there's the blatant carelessness that is so rampant it has become the norm. I constantly see parking cars roughly "tapping" parked cars while they squeeze into the only spot within blocks. It's disturbing which is why I'm afraid to ever own a car in this city that I would give an iota for.

Our first car that we owned here, a beloved Isuzu Trooper, was found one day to have a crushed tail light. I was shocked that someone would do that and not tell us. I have since realized that incidents like this are all too common.


Here is a look at our current car's side-view mirror, no doubt hit by someone that was trying to squeeze by a double-parked car and ours. Our friends were about to borrow our car when we discovered it. They took it regardless and repaired it with sticky velcro. Apparently, it was all they had on hand and so it has remained.


Although the window below fell spontaneously while driving, I wouldn't be surprised if the door hadn't been bumped by another vehicle at some point and we are just now seeing the effects. Or I could surmise that the poorly paved streets which result in excessively bumpy travels eventually jarred the window mechanism loose. Whether these be the case or not, this is the state of our window, which has only been so for two days and hopefully won't be that way come the weekend.

Lovely, isn't it? Those indentations in the plastic to the left are from Jane's little fingers.

To prove my point about the regularity of damage done to the cars of the street, here is a picture of two cars, one parked directly behind me and one parked directly in front of me.


Again, all too common.
I would venture to guess that 85% of the cars parked on our block suffer from such afflictions. Truly, the streets of NYC are an unsafe place for any vehicle, cherished or not.