New age car parking is hard on so many levels
CAR parking and car parks in Huddersfield give me a headache. This has not been helped by the demolition of the Market Hall multi-storey and the removal of on-street parking spaces for aesthetic effect.
Then, when I can find a parking space, I have encountered machines that take only a card rather than coins which can be a challenge.
A helpful delivery chap helped me work one parking machine in Corporation Street, next to the Town Hall, and a very kind lady stepped into the breach when my struggles with another in the Kingsgate Centre caused a queue to form behind me.
I avoid the multi-storey by the bus station because of the regimental concrete pillars that stand like members of the Terracotta Army.
Those immoveable soldiers take no prisoners for motorists who are less than precise.
On a crowded day, I imagine many drivers have left with battle scars down their bodywork.
And car parks that demand my registration number are no good. It takes me all my time to remember my cash card pin number, never mind my registration.
It appears we have moved into an era where human contact is being removed with supermarket tills manned by robots that are quick to take offence, and the use of a card is preferable to outmoded cash, so that we live life by numbers.
I don’t mind paying for parking as long as the system is simple: £1 in the slot will do me. But my problems with new age parking is one reason why my wife and I go into town to shop only on a Sunday morning, when there is half a chance of finding somewhere to leave the car before charges are imposed at high noon.