There was a small SUV for five consecutive days parked at the corner of Powers Avenue and Yolo Street in the 1950s-era neighborhood east of Manteca High.

And it was literally on the corner.

Given it is a slightly angled intersection, the car’s driver was able to park it in such a manner to block the entire high profile crosswalk.

You know the ones.

They have a series of cross lines running between the two major lines spanning the street from gutter to gutter.

They are designed to make them extremely hard for drivers not to see.

Yet, one driver couldn’t see it or didn’t care.

The car was also effectively crossing one of those ADA sidewalk access cuts.

Did I say there wasn’t a car parked nearby within a good 100 or so feet?

It is why the reason they parked where they did clearly was to take advantage of the shade cast over the spot on the intersection by a large tree in the adjoining yard.

The car hasn’t been parked there since a week ago.

Perhaps someone pointed out it was illegal to park in a crosswalk.

Maybe Manteca Police cited them. It’s a $65 ticket plus a $12.50 surcharge,

Common sense, or simple courtesy, should keep people from parking in crosswalks.

We shouldn’t need a state law to enforce an obvious rule for  living in a civilized world with others where one person can’t anoint their self the center of the universe without ripping into the social fabric.

Not only did California need a state law that prohibited parking in crosswalks but as of the first of the year, it has a new law also prohibiting the “crowding” of crosswalks by vehicles parking virtually on top of them.

It applies to visible and “invisible” crosswalks, or where a crosswalk would be painted at an intersection.

The new law prohibits the “stopping, standing, or parking of a vehicle within 20 feet” of a crosswalk. It only applies to the approaching direction of traffic.

The reaction to the so called “daylighting law” on social media in large cities such as San Diego has been bonkers.

Drivers that have been ticketed — including Uber and Lyft gig workers who claim it is making it rough for them to pick up riders so they can make money — come across as outraged.

The almost universal accusation is it is all about cities that are issuing the ticket generating revenue.

If that were the  case, the people running cities would be idiots.

A parking enforcement officer easily runs a minimum of $30 an hour to put on the street in payroll costs before you start adding vehicle costs and administrative expenses such as processing a citation to forward to the court.

The local jurisdiction gets less than 20 percent of the actual fine paid.

Three to four crosswalk parking citations per hour would basically be a wash.

If a full-fledged police officer wrote such tickets, they’d likely have to wrote six or so and hour.

The reason for the law is pedestrian safety.

You remember pedestrians?

They’re not the ones encased in 3,000 to 4,000 pounds of steel and other material usually  zipping down the streets exceeding the posted speed limit and likely texting at the same time.

Then there are those that are irked when they get cited for their vehicles intruding onto sidewalks.

It’s not fair, they say. Their driveway was built years ago and is too short to accommodate the length of their choice of vehicle.

San Diego has also been citing vehicle owners aggressively for that vehicle code infraction.

The pushback from those that got tickets was to claim it is all about the city generating revenue.

They add it’s not their fault their driveway is too short and that is the city’s problem and not their problem.

Again, there is this odd thing called pedestrians.

In the case of people who park their vehicles in a way that intrudes on sidewalks that sometimes are three wide in residential areas instead of the modern standard of four feet, they are making passage hard, if not impossible, for those using walkers or wheelchairs.

It doesn’t matter if a sidewalk on a street isn’t at the congestion level of the 120 Bypass at commute time.

Sidewalks exist for pedestrians.

Those with limited mobility are forced to do what could be dangerous work arounds to get past illegally parked cars intruding on sidewalks.

It can force them to deal with vertical curbs or even rolling curbs that can be treacherous depending upon the angle.

It sends them into the street.

On the yard side, lawns aren’t exactly wheelchair friendly.

A few months ago, there was a visitor to the 400 block of California Avenue where I live who would routinely park in a manner that half the sidewalk in front of my home would be taken over by the right side of their SUV.

It’s easy to do without jarring alignment given I have a rolling gutter.

The front of my house is a popular place to park because of shade trees. And the street, itself, is wide enough that two cars going in opposite directions can transverse it when they are vehicles parked on both sides.

I have no problem with people parking in front of my house given it is a city street and not mine.

But I do have a problem with people parking on the sidewalk.

One day I happened to be in the front yard when the lady pulled up.

As she got out of the car, I said “hi” and asked if she knew she was parking in a manner that was taking up half the sidewalk.

She replied she didn’t want her car hit.

I noted the street was wide enough and that there were people in the neighborhood who used the sidewalk including children and elderly people.

I added there wasn’t room for someone using a walker or wheelchair to get pass her car while staying on the sidewalk.

Her reply?

She said that she has never seen people walking.

I was a tad taken aback until I realized she might have meant she never acknowledges that anyone walks like a good number of drivers do.

And that is the problem.

Drivers don’t give pedestrians a second thought, including the obviously handicapped unless they see them in the moment.

After all, there was no one using the sidewalk or crosswalk when they parked in them so what’s the big deal, right?

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com