Car Parking Blues

As the island's population continues to expand so the number of cars on our roads also increases.

Unfortunately, there has been no corresponding increase in car parking spaces over the years and we now have a bit of a problem. 

creative parking solution

A large proportion of the working population have to travel to Douglas for work and most choose to drive there. The lack of available free parking leads to some of them taking a bit of a liberty.

I used to work at the hospital which is on the outskirts of town.  I regularly saw people drive into the hospital car park and take up the free spaces there, then a friend would arrive to pick them up and drive off to town. The friend probably had access to a company space in town or they shared the town parking fees between them.  Needless to say, when the patients turned up for their appointments later in the day, all the spaces were full.

The same thing is happening at the Tesco store in town. Office workers have taken to arriving early in the morning and taking up spaces in the store's car park so that when we shoppers arrive there is nowhere left to park. A store employee told us that when challenged, these people often turn quite aggressive.

There are several car parks in town but these are fairly expensive for all day parking so office workers prefer to nab a free space where they can.

I don't know what the answer is to the issue but it seems more and more people are just plain selfish and just don't give two hoots about anyone but themselves.

Rant over ...