Par Carking

It's amusing watching car park behaviour. In the one I often use, the most desirable spot is at the bottom left, closest to the building. So naturally you'd drive around to look for a spot near there. But in the morning when the car park is filling up rapidly, does it make sense to drive past the last few vacant spots near the entrance at the top right in order to find a great spot? Err no. It takes about 20 seconds to drive through the car park, and it takes about 35 seconds to walk it. So you're saving 15 seconds of your day, but you're risking the car park filling and having to walk from much further away.

The second irrationality on display here is that people use a heuristic to judge the walking distance they are trying to minimise - they generally try to park in the left row first, and then the middle row and then the right row. But the diagram clearly shows that the bottom of the right row is closer than the top of the left row. This faulty thinking is forcing people to walk upwards of 10 metres further than they should.