Fined RM50 for parking at ‘ladies-only’ area

I AM considering whether to make a police report against the parking policy in 1Borneo because of two problems which I think are serious.

Shoppers driving their vehicles to the 1Borneo basement car park would notice a clearly displayed sign which reads: “PARK AT YOUR OWN RISK. Not responsible for damage or theft to vehicles or vehicle contents. The Management.”

Many people may ignore this as a normal notice, and would brush it aside as unimportant. But to me this is very offensive simply because it shows no respect to the customers of the shopping mall who go there to patronise and spend their money. It also disregards the fact that the vehicle owners park there by paying a not-so-cheap parking fees.

The simple moral rule and obligation to be observed by 1Borneo is that by charging the vehicle owners, it is automatically bound to give at least some kind of assurance that vandals and thieves wouldn’t be tolerated in the parking basement, and that they would at least try their best to ensure vehicles are not damaged or broken into.

I have also been told by security guards there that they do have CCTV installed in the parking basement, but I am not sure how many CCTVs. So why install the CCTVs if they do not want to be responsible for damages and thefts?

The other day, my family had a shock to find that one of our car wheels was locked. Upon inquiry we were told that my son had parked in a ladies-only area of the basement car park. And the frustrating thing was that the penalty required to have the lock opened was RM50.00 (fifty ringgits)! For a small mistake which was not even due to parking in a non-parking area, we had to fork out so much cash.

I asked how they knew it was a man who parked the car, and the lady guard said they had CCTV to monitor it all. I felt another frustration because it all looked like a trap for those people who have never gone through and learned a lesson from this shock. If they had CCTVs, why didn’t they just tell us that we had parked on a wrong spot and needed to move elsewhere?

And why would they need to have a special parking space for ladies only? Are they saying that lady drivers are some kind of physically-challenged people? Or was this whole ladies-only rule a deliberate plan to trap male drivers to suck cash from them? Is it legal for them to do this? That’s what I would really like to know.