SOME EXPLANATION IS NEEDED TO START OFF WITH:

I live and work in a large, regional city. As with most cities, parking can come at somewhat of a premium.At the start of the year, it wasn’t too bad. Then the City Of Digging Stuff Up and Knocking Things Down (CODSUANKTD) gave building approval to build not one but TWO further lots of apartments on two of the remaining reasonably central carparks AND allowed a major shopping development to take place on the other one; and as a result more than 1000 car parks were lost. And lost permanently (unless the shopping centre brings back the Early Bird all day parking for $5 thing; which I seriously doubt.

As you can imagine, the consequences of the loss of 1000 carparks in the CBD has been an influx of cars parking on residential streets. And the residents are Not Impressed. They cannot get a park outside their own houses, and if they happen to get one, are virtually stuck there for the day, as they wouldn’t be able to get a park within a block when they get home. Now, part of this problem is caused by the aforementioned CODSUANKTD allowing people to knock down the old weatherboard house with off street parking for 2-3 cars and replace them with lots of three or four units with parking for 1.6 cars per unit on site. When the workers complained – the CODSUANKTD responded by telling them that if they lived in the Big Smoke, they’d have to park miles and miles and miles away… Now, I don’t know about everyone else, but I choose to live in a regional city for a reason, and this town is NOT the Big Smoke. So the CODSUANKTD decided that in order to be fair, they would implement a Park ‘n’ Ride system at a carpark roughly 2km from the CBD and run a bus every 15 minutes for a cost; and in addition they would convert half the off street parking within a 2km radius to 2 hourly parking and charge the residents for parking permits… Yup, charge the people who are paying inner city rates an additional $40 per car park for the privilege of parking out the front of their own homes.

Anyway, this brings me to the purpose of my tale.

I live just over 2km from the CBD, my kids go to childcare about 1.5km from home, and a smidge under 1km from work. The Park ‘n’ Ride would mean having to leave home 30 minutes EARLIER in order to maybe meet up with a bus, and end up having to walk 20 minutes to work. (Please note: it’s not the walk that bothers me, it’s the time factor). It also means travelling the same distance as driving HOME, so I’d be better off dropping the car off and walking from there! So with much calculating and experimentation, I have discovered that if I park at daycare and walk from there, it actually takes less time than driving and parking elsewhere, and I end up walking maybe 100m maximum more than I was previously (see, told you I didn’t mind the walk).

The added bonus of this is that because my fine young son is a slacker, and objects to walking further than he absolutely has to whilst carrying his brother’s daycare bag; it means I can generally get him revved up enough in the morning to be early so we get a “good” park. Now, there are roughly seven or eight (depending on size of car and parking skillz) car parks out the front of daycare; and there is a very strict albeit unwritten “ettiquette” to parking, particularly for the first three cars:

  1. Car #1 MUST park as far forward as they can, because
  2. Car #2 has to allow for getting kids out of the car around a telegraph pole that would be in the middle of the back door if they were parked further forward, which means
  3. Car #3 has to park right up the exhaust pipe of car #2 in order to not block the driveway.

So, as long as Car #1 parks as far forward as possible, there is enough room for three cars in one strip. It works, we’ve worked it out, and it works every single morning. We normally get Park #2 or 3, but this morning, relegated to Park #5! And why?

Because a DAD DROPPED OFF IN PARK #1.

You do not DROP OFF in the parks out the front; drop offs are done in the carpark! And at 7.30am, the carpark is NOT congested, so there is no need to upset the day of at least three Working Mothers who have undoubtedly (at my house, anyway) already been up for hours and have spent the majority of that time yelling at assorted children to get ready and may or may not be caffienated to an adequate level to accept any degree of change in the morning. Not to mention the simple fact that preschoolers and toddlers are creatures of Routine and do not like changes thrust upon them, particularly when mum hasn’t had enough coffee.
And he parked badly, so when Car #2 and Car #3 filled behind him, then he left, there was only room for a very little car in Park #1.

I tell you what, if I get my hands on him…