space saver

A parking chair is a chair that is used by a vehicle owner to informally mark a 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.
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.

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