very sophisticated techniques for spotting a likely opening and getting yourself positioned to take advantage of it before another vulture does.

One is: if you see someone coming out of the store carrying bags, drive with your front bumper one foot behind them until they get to their car. This will have made them so nervous that they don't fool around with careful loading, hair fixing, or seat-belt fastening--they just jump in and go. The big disadvantage of this is if the person you're following has cheated, and is using your driving lane as a ploy: as he turns in beside what you imagine to be his vehicle, you watch in disbelief as he cuts through to the other side and frees a space into which another lurker triumphantly drives.

Another technique, though lacking a bit in the finesse department, is to simply gun your motor and cut in front of any other vehicle that, say, has its turn signal on, indicating that its occupant is waiting patiently and politely for the driver of the parked car to vacate the spot. A variant of this is the other-end-sneak: you're waiting for the car to back out of its parking space so you can move into it. Well! Its driver pulls forward, leaving two open spots, contiguous at the short end. You pull all the way into the far one so you can be facing out when you leave the spot, thus neatly foiling the plans of the patient driver who has been waiting in the far lane, turn signal blinking...