SHE SAYS ...

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32702, 3 September 1971, Page 21

SHE SAYS ...

Every day in Christchurch—and, in particular, every evening when people are flocking to the theatres • —you can see dozens of examples of inconsiderate parking in the mid-city streets. Dozens of parking spaces are wasted because of it—you know the sort of thing I mean: one car parked in a two-car space so that it’s quite impossible for anyone else to get in. I don’t believe that the people who do this sort of thing do it deliberately just to be discourteous and awkward. They just don’t think. I remember spending some time waiting for an appointment in a tall building in the city, and seeing several people drive along the road beneath and park in just such a way: halfway between two gateways or parked cars, so that noone else could- get in. One car taking up 30-odd feet of space. I’m afraid most of. the offenders were Women, although I know well that plenty of men dp the same. There is another sort of inconsiderate parking that’s pretty common also, and it

is going to the other extreme: parking so close to the car ahead or behind that the other driver stands no chance of getting her vehicle out. And if the other driver is a woman, she has little chance of being able to push cars about to give herself more room to manoeuvre. Women who drive into the city during the week (o do their shopping risk being “shut in” like this in some areas, where there are no meters, and even where there are meters you can find yourself “shut in” by a double-parked truck. I long ago. decided that the easiest thing when shopping in the city was to head for the nearest car-parking building. When you do park in the street, though, please be careful about pulling out from that parking spot. So many drivers don’t signal, they just start to sweep out -—and only then do they look behind them. By that time the nose of their cair is a good three feet out inttf the traffic, andjtytfG'happen to be pjtssffig when they make ,-tnat initial sweep it can-be highly alarming, if not downright dangerous.