in Germany.

Here, it is a criminal offence to leave the scene of an accident. Which means, if you collide with another vehicle whilst parking - even grazing the paint when leaving a parking spot, you have to stop and wait for the owner of the other vehicle to come back; or call the police.

If you don't have a mobilephone, you have to wait at least half an hour at the location of the accident, for the owner to come back, before you can go and look for a telephone box or local police station, to report the accident.

Leaving you name and address under the wiper is not sufficient.

If you drive away, the police will usually look at the damaged vehicle and, if paint has been left behind, they will do forensics on the paint, to determine make and model (usually to within a couple of years), which makes searching for the offender much easier.

If you are caught after the fact, you will get a serious bill!

< 600€ damage : payment of the damage and a fine.
601 - 1200€ : Payment for the damage, one months salary as a fine, 3 months driving ban, 7 points on the licence.
> 1200€ : Payment for the damage, a fine of several thousand Euros, 6 months driving ban, destruction of the licence (you need to apply for a new licence after 6 months).

In serious cases, you could also face a prison sentence!

No such luck here!

So many little dents from people opening their car doors, in the supermarket car park, and bang.
Why? does it not also chip their paint?

If it does it will be on an edge so not so noticeable. I also think the Germans have perhaps taken it a bit too far. Small scrapes and dings should be considered normal wear and tear. If you want to keep your car in pristine condition then keep it in a garage.

So it's you.....an apology would go some way

I take the utmost care when driving, parking and opening doors, and afaik have never caused damage to another's car. My cars have been damaged anonymously by others which is annoying, but it's part of using it on public roads, just like stone chips.

It does suck. I have two dints in a door from careless people opening their doors onto my car in car parks. I also have a scrape on the front corner where someone has grazed it while pulling to a car park space.
It bugs the hell out of me.

I noticed one on my alfa the other day. It's one of the reasons I don't use it as a daily driver anymore.

They should meke all cars have slidey doors

There was one that had then recently IIRC. Peugot 1007 or something? Apparently they worked quite well but having the rails & etc for the doors to slide on added a lot of weight to the car so it made it quite poor to drive. I'd say having doors that rotate up rather than out would be better.

Jon

Nope. We should do away with doors altogether. Mini Moke FTW!

Maybe, though I'd rather have the bottom of the range Arial Atom

Spend a winter up north then say that again

I don't care. We're too cosseted in our personal transport systems. We don't need all the fancy-schmancy electronics and security, so why not get right back to basics? Hell, why not right back to the earliest days of motoring? Folk might actually appreciate what they have if they're forced to suffer a wet and cold journey in an open-topped vehicle with no heater or decent windscreen wipers.

Until you wedge it in a garage.

What really needs to happen is for parking spaces to actually be car shaped for a change.

As if that's ever going to happen. Shops etc want to cram as many people as they can in a smaller space as possible. Councils want more spaces rathe rthan good spaces so they can get more money from charges.