Parking fine.

We've been parking on our new car deck for a couple of weeks now. It is very nice not having to scour the neighbourhood for a vaguely legal space. It still looks like a construction site, but all systems are go.

We're in a cul de sac, which unfortunately (only in this regard, mostly it rocks) leads to a major tourist attraction & commuter passage to the CBD. Which means our cul de sac fills up each weekday morning with cars owned by tourists, which is understandable, but more irritatingly, by commuters who swoop in each morning to park their cars for the day & gain lazy access to town.

Often, they have residents' stickers, but they reside at the other end of our suburb. These guys piss me off. But no longer!

Except that a lot of these folk don't seem to have noticed that now there is a bona fide driveway where there used to be a residents' park. So the bastards park there anyway, regardless of whether they're locking our car in. Or out. It defies belief. We're getting really good at writing nasty, yet economical notes outlining our course of action should they do this again.

What's particularly galling, is that we went out of our way to be considerate. Outside our house was parking expansive enough for 3.5 cars. We went to some pain & trouble to ensure that our driveway eliminated only 1 park leaving plenty of space for 2 on one side, and a small gap that half a car might be able to park in if you had say, half a car to park.. We also had to negotiate access between 2 very large & magnificent trees, otherwise I'd have been tempted to only take away the half a car park.

But still morons think they can park their huge vans, SUVs, saloons... you name it, in the half space seemingly oblivious to the fact they've just parked right across our legal access too. Some just park neatly across our driveway entrance, obligingly leaving the half space in front of a tree empty.

I found the Wellington City Council to be very helpful in providing a solution. I rang them & logged a call asking could they come and remove the white "L" parking line, and paint another in the appropriate place? I also mentioned that broken yellow lines might be nice. I figured this way too, I'd find out for sure if Darth Sidious Architects really did lodge & receive the appropriate permissions for drive-on access that I know I have paid for... and it seems so.

I was told that the "L" lines were easy to arrange, but all sorts of consents & permissions were required from another agency to get yellow lines approved. I said if she had a look, I'd accept her judgement.

She rang back a couple of hours later & said she'd logged the request for both "L" lines & yellow lines. Yahoo! And they'd hopefully be implemented by Christmas. Our neighbours will also be pleased, because the yellow lines will extend across their driveway too.

In a way I feel like a mean & rotten local resident looking out for himself at the inconvenience of others. But only in a very small way. Now & then. Mostly I think "Suck on that. Park outside your own home dickhead."