Parking the car requires physical adeptness

Do you ever stop and ponder the intricacies of certain mechanical devices that are planned to make life more technological, save human resources and earn some cash for the developers?

Many of these so-called advances are taken for granted, embraced or ignored, depending on one’s lifestyle, desires, economic solvency and the salesmanship abilities regarding customer engagement.

But sometimes we are forced into encounters with machinery through no choice of our own, with no ability to ignore or say “no” to experiences with these machines. Take the parking equipment at the hospital — there is wishful thinking from some hospital visitors that someone should indeed take the equipment to another location.

When the hospital opened there was a flurry of complaints about having to pay for the privilege of having a “free x-ray or blood test.” One woman even told me she couldn’t afford to pay for parking, that now she wouldn’t be able to visit her friends and family as she regularly did at the former hospital where spots were free in the parking lot, the overflow lot and on the nearby streets. She must have found some spare cash as she was at the hospital the other day, still muttering about having to pay — but I digress.

I am willing to pay, if only it could be an easier exercise. The person who designed the machinery failed to take into consideration the physical challenges of some drivers who approach the barrier and attempt to push the button to receive a ticket that magically lifts the barricade.

The physical challenge that faces me is my shortness, in particular, the shortness of my arm that has to reach through the window to access the button to receive my ticket. I am opposed to driving in close enough to the ticket machine — the cost of a new paint job on the driver’s side means I would not be able to visit friends and family — so I carefully drive in, lower the window, undo my seatbelt, and stretch as far as I can — but mostly I don’t have sufficient reach to reach the button. That means I have to put the vehicle in park, open the door and manipulate my arm through the window while balancing on one foot to push and grab. Then it is a rush to get back into the vehicle, put it in gear and drive through the entrance while the barricade is up and inviting. I have no idea if there is a certain time allowed for the vehicle to enter once the ticket has been issued but I have no desire to dilly dally to find out or to feel it coming down on my vehicle because I don’t move quickly enough.

Then there’s the added problem when one’s driver’s side window is frozen shut because of winter weather. That happened just the other day so there I was, in the wind storm, getting carefully out of the vehicle, stepping gingerly onto the icy surface, hanging on with one hand and getting the ticket and hoping it doesn’t blow away — I certainly hope no one I know viewed my efforts first hand, but I saw others with the same predicament.

Checking out presents some of the same problems, but the most annoying is never knowing the true cost of parking, despite the helpful signs on the payment machines inside. Why did I pay $2 one day and $3 another for the same amount of visiting time? Curious.

My remedies to my parking dilemma at the hospital and in parkades where similar devices are used: have a robotic arm that extends out to entering and exiting vehicles, an arm to give and take the ticket. Short arm problem solved. Or better yet, hire a human person to distribute tickets and take payments — like the old days. I’d much rather greet a human person than have to mutter nasty expletives to a machine that can’t hear me, and wouldn’t care what I said if it could hear me. For Moose Jaw Express