Dialogue: Bless parking infantry and the towie cavalry

By GORDON McLAUCHLAN

I write in defence of towies, the drivers of what their droll trade boss Bill Egan euphemistically calls "parking re-education units," and I offer them my help in conducting their daily angioplasties to clear our city arteries of the indolent and the insolent.

Every day I see drivers from every socio-economic strata - from riff-raff all the way down to suits - obstruct traffic, usurp other people's parking rights, stop on bus stops in rush hour, double-park in congested streets, cruise around at 10 km/h waiting for someone to leave a clear space, obstruct the flow of traffic to offload or pick up a little darling immediately outside the school gates or a spouse outside the front door of the working place - all because they're too fat and lazy to walk a couple of blocks, too parsimonious to pay for a parking building or too thick to take parking into account when they organise their day's activities.

And the Auckland City Council should pay the towies a double bonus for every car picked up parked on a suburban footpath because of the cost to ratepayers of damage done to paving not designed to carry the weight, and to grass verges churned up and ruined in the winter months.

Also, the morning or evening walk that health experts are exhorting citizens to take is impeded several times in each block.

When the city had its own traffic police, officers would tour the suburbs every few weeks dishing out tickets to these sociopaths who now park anywhere they like with impunity, wreaking hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage and making a walk to the shop by a woman and a pram a laborious chore.

To me, parking wardens are the infantry and towies the cavalry in this war against street anarchy and should be treated as the heroes they are.

In my experience they are phlegmatic in the face of the unwarranted abuse of bullies who think egalitarianism is the right to do what they want when they want.

The heroes' numbers should be doubled and the blitz stepped up. If I were the council I'd have a commando unit driving around watching for hazard lights that scream, "I am illegally parked! I am illegally parked!" The squad should issue a ticket for the offence and a stupidity sticker for advertising it.

I live and work in an apartment building constructed long before street parking became a problem in the city and for whose inhabitants the council has arranged residents' parking permits. These entitle holders to park in restricted areas from 6 pm until 8 am and all day during weekends and holidays.

The permits are not available to those living in apartment buildings constructed since the perils of on-street parking became obvious and who, therefore, knew when they moved in that on-street parking was a problem.

Next door is an open-air carpark that costs $4 a night or for 24 hours at the weekend. Within 100m, parking for $2 an hour is normally plentiful during the day and always available free in the evenings and at weekends.

Almost no night or weekend goes by without cars being towed from the residents' parks because drivers don't want to walk more than a few metres.

I expressed sadness one weekend as the towies lined up to take away the cars whose owners clearly need remedial reading classes, but the parking warden smiled wanly and said, "Look over there!" and pointed to parks 30m away.

She added: "I suppose one should feel a bit sorry for the lazy and the stupid but I've given up on them."

A few years ago, the clapped-out car of an elderly widow friend of mine sighed and died in Symonds St amid busy afternoon traffic. She's a proud woman who went through the Blitz. She lives on her pension. She was a bit distressed by the situation.

Along came a towie, a Bro, who asked her where she wanted the car taken to. She said she wanted to go home to Orakei, where a friend would look at it for her. She explained that she didn't have the money to get the car fixed by a garage.

The towie told her to hop into the cab, towed her home, had a cup of tea with her, wouldn't charge her and popped back the next day to see everything was okay with her.

She'd have waited through a long, embarrassing afternoon for anyone else to help her out.

I'd say this to Gary McCormick: You can tell a lot about people from the causes they espouse, from the issues they think are worth going to the barricades for.

Slagging towies for keeping the streets clear is a small man's crusade, especially when you didn't even give them a chance to consider your case by leaving a note under your wipers.

I know that down in Gizzie where you live you could leave your horse tied up to the war memorial and your dray blocking half the main street for a couple of days without causing disruption, except maybe a fight over who would shovel up the horseshit for his tomatoes. But you're in the big smoke now. Learn to live with it.