In the immortal words of the late Sid James “Infamy, infamy, they’ve got it in for me!”
I am 75 and have driven all over Europe, mid East, N America and never had this problem.
In fact I have never had this problem until I bought my Audi Estate and lived in the Gironde. Previously I had a Ford Probe when I lived in the Charente and when I first came to the Gironde.
No problem.
But now my Audi has scratches and dents and etc from cars that have driven into me whilst I am parked. What is even more annoying is that they are all individually too small to have reapired but collectively it is now looking a mess.
At first, I thought they might be targeting me cos I was English but in fact I am Welsh so it cannot be that and in any event I have a French number plate.
I used to play squash with a friend who was a psychiatric nurse at Shenley and he always said to me that “The fact that I you are paranoid, does not mean they are not out to get you!!!”
It is me?
Does anyone else have this experience?
Yep, that we do - Also just looked up Brabant,of course, it’s in Sth Holland, no wonder the name rang bells with me, seen it when sailing there - well at least we got the -…abant bit right. now if that had been boats hitting each other instead, perhaps it would have been correct 1st time round 
Yow, my memory! Trabant 601, Brabant is the place, doh! fell right into that. Trabi and all. OK Shirl, we stand corrected, don't we!
Trabant not Brabant surely.
Listening to Rambling Sid Rumpo was the first thing I ever recall making me cry with laughter. "he worgled his nadgel.." et al.
The Brabis are now collectors' cars! One friend's oldest son has a couple of them, but done up and pristine. No doubt they still produce the noxious fumes though.
Supermarket car parks have a lot of dents and scrapes to their credit. It appears that the difference between the spaces in public car parks that are standard and some supermarket car parks is an average of 8cm less width. Therefore, and I am sure everybody knows this one, if we park correctly in a space between two correctly parked cars in a public place getting out of the doors is relatively easy. Do the same in a supermarket car park and it is sometimes a bit of a squeeze, so doors inevitably knock the adjacent car. One time or another that guarantees a dent or scratch. It almost leads me to believe that the chambre de métiers of panel beaters has some kind of profound involvement in planning supermarket car parks. Intermarché tend to top my list for tight spaces.
When the wall came down in Berlin, do you remember seeing on TV, the Brabants that were fleeing from E to W? The state of most of them was incredible and I hope it wasn’t the wall falling on them.
I’ve maintained since 2008. That French drivers are only aware of their own ‘space’ especially when reversing out in supermarket car parks. You take your life in your hands pushing your trolley to your car. If the car driver had reversed into a space though it’s worse, cos they then foce the trolley down between the two cars as best they can, to unload to the boot.
I think one of the best tales I heard was back In UK, elderly lady driver who drove the main street in Frinton (Lovely tree lined Connaught Ave) and after banging into about 3 cars, was asked by the local Bobby to produce her documents at Walton police station, to which she retorted rather Haughtily "I don’t have those documents, I live inside “the gates” not her house names, but referring to the level crossing The docs I guess would have been the MOT and INS ones? what happened to her and with other car owners afterwards I don’t know, it would have happened about 20-30 years ago.
Perhaps nothing changes with the elderly, whatever country, and I dare say that!
Not that I consider myself elderly of course!
What a miserable self hating sod Kenneth Williams was. He didn't even have to evoke Stanislavsky or even the Actor's Studio to fill the part of Caesar. He was apparently very good as the Dauphin in Shaw's St Joan. Otherwise a miserably twisted waste of talent. Unlike Sid James who had no talent .
Simply not used to it, I would say, which develops into eventually being apparently indifferent but behind the calm exterior wishing to get your hands on just one of them.
My wife worked in Greece, for a while and some years ago, and all she remember is that all the cars were very old until Greece joined the EU when all the cars became new and very expensive!!! Maybe there is a message there!!!!
I worked in Macedonia for two years and they certainly had battered cars but then they were also relatively poor.
Still in a sad sort of way, I see that my paranoia was not warranted, which sort of implies I might be close to "normal"
Peter if you think France is bad (we spend 50% of our time in Charente) you should try living / driving in rural Greece ! (where we spend the other 50%)
I'm sure it's true that 'accidental' dents and scratches are normal in France. However our car, RHD with French plates, has also been the victim of an elderly vandal. Having parked near our village, we were returning from a walk when we spotted someone apparently peering into the car. It was too far away to see what he was doing, and starting to get dark. There was nothing obvious at the time and we concluded the chap was maybe just curious. However the next day we were astonished to find two doors covered in zigzag scratches. We know who the culprit is as we had passed him on the road - a sweet-looking old chap with a walking stick and a beret who lives locally. He is polite when you meet him and looks like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, though according to the mayor he is a well-known grump. The mayor spoke to the gendarmes about it in the hope they would have a word with him, but they weren't interested; anyway the mayor has told the guy he was seen and not to do it again. It was quite a saddening experience - shows you can't be sure what your neighbours are really thinking.
Both our cars too. To be honest, I don't think any of our friends actually has a completely dent/scrape free car. Having said that, one who bought a brand new car about two weeks ago had her door bashed with the door trim entirely knocked off and nowhere to be seen on her first trip to the shops. Because it was at a supermarket they had video footage from which they took the number of the car and its type, plus said they would keep the recording for the gendarmes to see. The local gendarmes shrugged a bit, then said she should see her insurer. They saw no point in taking action for just a dent. The insurance agent said he would deal with it but it might take a few weeks to get sorted so wait (wait for this...) until that is all sorted then go to a garage for repairs including for the ones he expects she will get in the meantime to be fixed on the other person's insurance! If somebody who probably deals with this phenomenon day in, day out speaks that way then it is obviously the norm.
Yep, it was Kenneth Williams alias Julius Caesar too.
Sorry for being pedantic that was actually Kenneth Williams in Carry On Cleo in which he played Julius Caesar.
Anyway, my car is the same. Have had the same one for 8 years now and it looks like it's spent it's life in a war zone.