I WITNESSED a bit of a rumpus at the weekend.

Two women screaming at each other in the car park at a pet food store - “That was my space!” one yelled from her vehicle, with a few expletives thrown in.

The other woman hadn’t, at that point, properly secured the space, but when it became available her passenger got out to stand in it while she reversed in, ahead of the other driver waiting on the opposite side.

It looked like the screamer was about to get out and challenge the interloper, but thought better of it, making aggressive gestures instead.

There is nothing like a parking space to cause tempers to fray. Across the country, in any one week, there are dozens of incidents, many with such serious consequences they reach court.

Last week a man from Manchester was jailed for two years after attacking a driver with a baseball bat following a row over a parking space. He was heard to say: “I’ve been waiting for this spot,” before launching an assault on the passenger of the other car. Also last week a court in Liverpool heard how a man threatened his neighbour with a knife and gun over a parking space, while last year in Somerset a man was charged over the deaths of a couple, allegedly murdered in a row over parking.

Why do we get so worked up over parking? We may only need the space for minutes while we pop to a shop. Even on a weekly trip to the supermarket, we only pull up for an hour or so. There’s always plenty of room on the outer reaches of the car park, but people want the ones nearest the entrance - they cruise around and if they spot an empty space and someone else nips in, in front of their eyes, they see red.

It’s odd that we - and I include myself, as I have been known to sound off under my breath when someone has cheekily shot into a space I’ve been waiting several minutes for - can be so possessive over a tiny strip of Tarmac we use only for a short time.

We spot a space and it becomes ours. We ‘own it’ and woe betide anyone who grabs it first.

Maybe it’s something to do with our being territorial. We are visually marking our territory and must secure it come hell or high water.

Of course, however frustrating it is, I’d never go so far as to threaten anyone over a lost parking space. I do carry a thumb stick in the boot of my car, but haven’t yet felt sufficiently riled to flail it around outside Morrisons.

Those who are sensible enough not to attempt a face-to-face confrontation, don’t always let the matter lie, however. Parking issues frustrate motorists in the UK so much that one in three of us has written an angry note and left it on someone else’s car, a study by used car dealer heycar found.

More irritating than a stolen space, I find, are those people who return to their cars, spot others waiting for the slot, get inside, then spend several minutes fussing about, adjusting their rear-view mirror, doing their make-up, sorting out their handbags, listening to the radio, who knows what. This happened to me recently at a busy York Station. After five minutes the driver tantalisingly stuck her reversing lights on, but didn’t shift for a further five minutes.

People do this at petrol stations too, as though they gain pleasure from gaining a little power over those in the queue behind.

Parking incites so much anger - it seems ludicrous that people go so far as to exert extreme violence on one another simply to find a spot to park their car.

Life’s too short, surely, for all this unnecessary aggression over something that, in the scheme of things, really doesn’t matter?

Maybe we could find space for parking in our New Year’s resolutions: keep calm, chill, drive on, go to another supermarket is necessary, let your neighbour park outside your home if they got there first, so what if someone darts in front of you at the station? Take deep breaths, ignore it, turn a blind eye. you’ll be a better person for it.