Snowparking - Let's Not Be Complacent Out There.

Perhaps emboldened by our Essential Services post last week when we pointed out the fact that delivery drivers can safely ignore pestestrian crossing zig-zags when they are covered in snow, the driver of MG Rover ZT-T 180 Sports Estate reg. SW05VBT has thrown caution to the wind and parked immediately beneath the "NO PARKING - At any time" sign at the top of Aberdeen's Abergeldie Road. The double-yellow lines are obscured by the snow, you see?

Maybe he thought the sticker on the sign meant it didn't count?

Or maybe his actions were motivated by self-preservation - the pavements are very slippy. Yes, the council knows that economic growth comes from cars and cars alone, flowing unimpeded around Aberdeen at all times. The roads must be cleared at all costs and kept open at all times so that the cars can flow. Only losers are ever seen walking any distance, so - quite rightly - none of our hard-earned council tax is wasted on clearing the pavements when it snows. Therefore, by parking so very close to the junction, the driver is perhaps enhancing his safety (and also prestige) by minimising the distance he must walk. And quite right too. Safety is prestigious.

All of which makes it all the more infuriating that the heartless Community Warden has sought out our hapless snow-parker and punished him. Who'd have thought that these hawk-eyed busybodies would be working when the weather is so poor? Not the put-upon parker of SW05VBT and not us at Aberdeen Cars either. We were shocked!

Booked! While its actually snowing!
That's not fair!

Generally, when the weather goes bad, we'd always thought that (like on Saturday morning or all day on Sundays) parking became a free-for-all in inner Aberdeen and that when the snow falls particularly badly, all parking regulations are suspended for personal safety and economic growth reasons. So the fact that this hapless parker has been booked when there's snow on the ground is a horrifying development. It's yet another example of how hard-pressed motorists, already tax-farmed by central government, are being treated as just another revenue-raising cash cow by our local authority. It will act as a brake on economic growth if VIP wealth-generating motorists are not allowed to express their entrepreneurial flair by using the smallest excuse to grant themselves a license to park where and when they please.

And it's a disgrace.

And we thought that RNUC members were exempt.

RNUC: "It is about good companionship and a sense of belonging in a dignified atmosphere,
where old traditions have meaning and value, because they have been tested and retained."

Old traditions, like parking wherever you like.