Parking chair

A parking chair is a chair that is used by a motorist to informally mark a public parking space as reserved. Other objects are also used for this purpose, including trash cans, ladders, ironing boards, traffic cones, and similar-sized objects. In Boston, these are known as parking space savers or just space savers. For curbside parking spaces, two or more items are normally used; for angle spaces, only one is needed.

The practice of using parking chairs is common in snowy weather within urban residential areas of the United States, where vehicle owners do not wish to risk losing their vehicle's previously occupied space in its absence. Other spaces may be hard to find due to accumulation of uncleared and plowed snow, and the owner of a vehicle may have invested considerable work in clearing a parking space to free the car. This is common in areas where side streets are fully lined with parallel parked cars allowing only the center of the street to be cleared of snow, which then has the effect of pushing the snow onto the parked cars. The practice is widely criticized because it reduces the amount of parking, and is considered unneighborly and selfish.

This practice is especially common in the Northeastern United States (for example, in Boston and Pittsburgh), as well as Philadelphia, and the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes regions (for example, in Chicago, where it is referred to as "dibs"). In Pittsburgh and Chicago, the use of parking chairs is considered to be an "iconic" regional practice.

In snowstorms, vehicle owners with such a need mark the space as their own that their vehicle previously occupied after digging out the heavy snow that covered the vehicle and blocked them in. A such way to indicate that the parking spot is reserved is to place a lawn chair often referred as a "Parking Chair" to indicate others of the reserved spot for the owner that will soon return. The legality and level of enforcement of existing laws pertaining to this practice varies by location. Generally, curbside parking spaces are public property and are available to vehicles on a first-come, first-served basis. Still, respecting these makeshift markers has been accepted by citizens as a common courtesy during snowstorms.

While use is year-round, it is a particularly time-honored tradition in heavy snowfall accumulation, when a resident who "digs out" their spot on the street essentially declares ownership, which often goes unchallenged by neighbors for fear of retribution.

The idea of the practice is that the person reserves the space from which they have freed their vehicle for future parking during the remainder of the storm and as long as snow remains on the ground. It is generally a Lockean recognition that the effort of the physical exertion of digging provides an entitlement to the space where the vehicle was previously located. But in some instances, spaces get reserved in this fashion even before a snowstorm starts.

The practice is common throughout areas of the United States susceptible to large amounts of snow and where curbside parking on residential streets is the norm, especially in the Northeast.

The items used have sometimes been referred to as the Pittsburgh Parking Chair, due to their common use in Pittsburgh and its nearby suburbs. Pittsburgh is a very hilly area, with houses very close together, and many older neighborhoods predate cars, having narrow streets with no driveways to park in and parking on only one side of the street. While such ad hoc parking restrictions have no legal standing in the city of Pittsburgh, common and long standing community tradition supports their use. As the "parking chair" is part of the culture of the city, local police generally turn a blind eye to these impromptu markers, which under legal jurisdiction, technically qualify as "abandoned furniture".