ICE-holes ICE-blocking is infuriating for EV drivers

Sure, ice blocking sounds like something sweet and summery you’d do with the kids, but it’s actually just more evidence, as if any were required, of man’s inhumanity to man.

I saw two people doing it the other day and was overcome by the desire to go Angry Old Man on them, to the point where I considered scrawling rude words on their cars in my own urine.

Yes, I do tend to overreact, but honestly, what sort of person drives past a dedicated EV-charging space in an internal-combustion-engined car and says “Bugger it, I’m a selfish asshole, I’ll just park here, and if someone turns up who’s desperately in need of a charge, they can just sit there and froth impotently until I leave”?

Would they pull up at a service-station bowser, park their car in front of it and wander off for a few hours?

Just to be clear, the kind of ice blocking – or ICE blocking – we’re talking about here is when someone uses their ICE vehicle to block access to an EV charging space by parking in it. Like an asshole. Or ICE-hole…

I’ve just discovered that ice blocking can also refer to “a recreational activity in which individuals race to the bottom of a hill sitting on large blocks of ice”, which is particularly popular in colder areas of the US. And sounds like fun.

ICE blocking in the car context is not fun, and it is not the done thing, but it doesn’t seem to be illegal. Yet.

I can sort of see their thinking. No one is parked here right now, I’ve never actually seen an EV and I don’t really understand them, so what harm will it do if I park here?

Almost, except that the two EV-charging points at this particular car park – at the Tramsheds in Glebe, Sydney, generally always have at least one car plugged in and charging.

And the thing is that a charging space isn’t just a parking space, it is the spot that driver has planned their day around, the place they’re going to be plugged in for a while, getting vital charge to get them through their day, or their week.

It’s just hugely infuriating, and on my recent visit both spots were ICE blocked, by two big old gas-guzzling shitboxes, no less. I think if I’d actually been in an EV myself at the time I would have been even angrier, and perhaps more justified in letting their tyres down.

Aside from the evil stain of ICE blocking there is a slightly different version out there, which I think Gwyneth Paltrow would call “Conscious Decoupling”.

My colleague informs he he’s seen a bit of this, where someone who owns an EV pulls up at a charging space, takes the spot and then isn’t charging.

You might not be able to call that ICE blocking, exactly, but it’s still wrong.