RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29232, 16 June 1960, Page 22

RANDOM REMINDER

In Christchurch, as in other parts of the world, car parking is becoming more than a problem merely in time and space. If it could be reduced to pure mathematics, it should be possible to reach some satisfactory solutions. But it is assuming the proportions of a social evil, which may best be studied on a wet day, or on a Friday evening. The desire to park the car conveniently brings out the worst in man. Some drivers go at the problems like an All Black forward five yards from the line. There was a typical example in Cathedral square not so

long ago, when a parking space became vacant and was contested by two motorists with more grim resolve than old-world courtesy. They started about equi-distant from the spot subsequently marked X, and as neither had the slightest intention of wavering, they met with a most satisfying crash. No-one was injured, phvsically. The world, of course, is divided into the haves and the have-nots, and included in the former category are those who have access to parking areas in the city. While their cousins wipe the mist from their windscreens and peer desperately about them, muttering imprecation about the

habits of their fellows, exhorting their own passengers to keep their eyes peeled for parking spots and traffic officers, the favoured few sail smoothly in beneath the notices which shriek threats of deportation and Devil’s Island to those who trespass. But even in the sanctuary of a properly-established parking lot, all is not always well. The man who pays the rent for his parking is usually fearful that his privileges are being filched: and that i* why motorists disembarking in such places so often regard each other with truculent and suspicious stares. Truly, it is tin** we all went back to bicyles.