Image Source: Birmingham Mail
Even without three pugs on leash, that laptop bag was really bulky and heavy to have sitting there on the road while you opened the door, and you would be safer putting that in the car from the kerb side as well. Opening two car doors instead of one will only take an extra minute and might save you years of regret.
Yours in Dread,
Horrified, passing through Sydenham
* ObTWIAVBP: edited “pavement” to “pavement/kerb” to acknowledge regional differences in word usage. In Australia, we call the bit on the side of the road where the pedestrians walk “pavement”. We call the road surface “the street” or “the road” (or maybe “the tarmac”). We never call the bit that cars drive on “pavement”.
Categories: Life
Soggy here, innit? 
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Cringe! Ughhh don’t do that!
I know! It flabbered my gast.
*shudder*
One of the nice things about driving my van is that there’s no need for anyone to use the roadside rear door – there’s plenty of room to stand up and go across to the footpath side (just to add another variation on the pavement/kerb nomenclature).
I *knew* I’d missed out an important nomenclature – footpath, of course.
Absent some sort of central-locking mishap, I can’t see why on earth anyone would do it this way. And even then, she had a really big, heavy bag with her – why not just tether the pugs to the bag on the footpath while she got in to the driver’s side and then manually unlocked the passenger-side door? Sure, she’d have to get out again and go around to get dogs/bag into car, but wouldn’t it be worth that bit of kerfuffle?
It sounds totally normal to me – but I live in a quiet rural area where there are very few footpaths, people wander all over the road to have a chat, and many dogs roam freely. Of course, there’s no public transport, so we also have nearly-blind and very elderly drivers… people know who to look out for, but it’s not a good combination!
The busy road was what made it horrifying. Quieter roads are different.
Sigh. I remember growing up in suburban Newcastle where drivers would stop and wave to us to keep on playing our street-cricket while they enjoyed watching it for a little while before they went on their way. Definitely none of that in inner Sydney.