Big car and small spaces

It’s irritating enough going from shop to shop and feeling penalised when trousers that are labelled as being the same size fit in one shop but are too small for you in another.

Well, now there’s a similar problem being suffered by motorists parking in spaces provided by councils.

Fines are being issued to drivers who have parked their car in a bay that is too narrow or too short to fit their vehicle in correctly.

Now, this is all for the good of the road network, since cars overlapping onto the road could cause an accident, but there are two problems.

One – cars are reportedly 16% wider than they were four decades ago.

And two – different councils have different views of what being too big for a parking space entails.

Some councils feel that if the entire car is not within the markings, then it is too big, others feel that as long as the vehicle’s wheels are within the lines, all is well.

Until they all decide on one all-encompassing set of rules, motorists will remain confused and keep getting fines they thought they were safe from.

Very annoying. Now please excuse me – I need to drive into town to exchange these tiny trousers. Grrrr.

Labels: accident, bay, car, council, drive, driver, fine, motorists, narrow, parked, parking, road network, safe, short, size, spaces, vehicle