SnowParking Roundup

Now that the festive season's over, and the snow and ice have cleared, it's time to take a moment to find out what lessons the drivers of Aberdeen Cars can learn from weather like this. I bet the clever entrepreneurs of Aberdeen can turn this to their advantage!

Parking Restrictions. Frozen! Hoora!

PaveParking is of course something that the drivers of Aberdeen Cars do as a matter of course anyway. Particularly in the upscale West End of the city. However, during the winter months, the clever PaveParkers of the West End provide an extra benefit by actually saving our hard-pressed council precious funds. You see, the PaveParkers actually prevent the gritting and clearing of pavements all over that prestigious district. This is People Power. This is the Big Society: We don't want or need the pavements to be gritted, so we use the means at our disposal to prevent it.

Indeed, why should our council devote precious resources to subsidising the unimportant feckless road-tax-dogding pestestrians? These freeloaders infuriate us with their refusal to contribute to economic growth and pay their way; pay their share with road tax, petrol tax, extra VAT, parking charges, and all the rest. These pestestrians are unimportant, they do not deserve our subsidy. If they were important, they'd be able to afford a nice car, and wouldn't need to waste the council's money on having the pavement gritted, or indeed maintained in any way.

The clever PaveParkers of Aberdeen Cars are doing us all a favour by showing these pestestrians just where they stand in the socioeconomic pecking order, and by freeing up precious roadspace so that the infinitely more important, hard-pressed, busy, clever and responsible motorists can enjoy the benefits of better traffic flow, which, as everyone knows, is the predominant source of economic growth and prosperity.

So, PaveParking is to be encouraged whenever possible. But those new to PaveParking mustn't get carried away. Please don't go too far, the pestestrians might "CarriageWalk".

Pavement? What Pavement?

If the snow conceals the double yellow lines, that means you can park wherever you like. Close to junctions, on the zig-zags, wherever. The No Parking signs don't count when there's snow on the ground. Obviously.

So. Let's look forward to more snow during the remainder of the winter. We just love the parking free-for-all which it implies for the drivers of Aberdeen Cars.

Cycle Lane Use in Aberdeen

With the weather thawing, the drivers of Aberdeen Cars are beginning to get things back to normal and clearing their stately drives of ice and slush at last. Thank goodness!

But where to put it? Piling it up on the pavement merely encourages CarriageWalking, as we have seen, so that's out of the question. Here, though the innovative drivers of Aberdeen Cars who live on the city's Great Western Road show us the correct use of the cycle lane. And why not? They've paid for it after all!

Gets it off your stately drive and doesn't encourage CarriageWalking.
But most importantly - helps stamp out cycling.

Know Your Enemy #1 - The CarriageWalker

Yesterday we examined Aberdeen City Council's well meaning policy of prioritising the clearing of snow and ice from the carriageways of roads while completely ignoring the pavements. The intent of this policy initiative being clearly to encourage citizens to use cars only for getting about, thus contributing to economic growth in Aberdeen "City and Shire". We highlighted how this policy had backfired with disastrous consequences for the drivers of Aberdeen Cars. We noted the rise of a new radical breed of pestestrian: The CarriageWalker! Eschewing the pavements with their still-untouched snow and ice, rather than act normal and use cars, these thuggish pestestrians have quite perversely taken to the carriageways. On foot!

This forces the terrified motorist to take extra care in avoiding these reckless troublemakers lest they touch our nice cars; everyone knows that when a stranger touches your car it runs the risk of rendering your car somehow less nice, and erodes your prestige in the community. So, with these CarriageWalkers occupying the bit of the road which is for cars only, we can only say how intimidated we are by this new development, it is as if our world is turned upside down. It just shouldn't happen!

Moreover, what with all these suddenly visible pestestrians getting in the way and showing off, visitors to our city might think that not everyone here can afford a nice car. Obviously, that's not the sort of impression we want to give to visitors, what with us being The Oil Capital of Europe, and rolling in petrodollars and everything - so these troublemaker thugs are not only intimidating the normal everyday (albeit very important) citizen drivers of Aberdeen Cars, but they are also eroding our city's standing on the International Stage, and threatening the very future survival of our city and everything in it. They must be stopped!

Observe her with care. She might touch your car.

So, as a service to our readers, we thought we'd help you identify these radical anarchists who think they can do whatever they please at the expense of the hard-pressed tax-farmed motorists who have paid for the road. Here are the six key points which you can use to identify The Radical CarriageWalker:

1. That thing on her head is a wooly hat. This is perhaps to protect her head from the truncheon-blows which she expects to come raining down from the mounted riot police which we have summoned. Or maybe it's just to keep her head warm because she's outside on a coldish day.
2. On her feet - boots. We think there used to be a song: "These Boots Were Made for Walking". Quaint.
3. She is wearing a coat which is too long to comfortably wear when driving. This proves that she simply has absolutely no intention of driving. Unbelievable!
4. Over her shoulder - a large bag. This is no doubt full of spray-cans for obscene graffiti. Otherwise, it carries the stuff which normal people put on the back-seat or in the boot or glove compartment.
5. Speaking of which, on her hands are what can only be described as actual gloves. This is another sinister aspect, as she will be untraceable via fingerprint evidence.
6. You can't see it on the photo, but her face displays a carefree smile (or is it a smirk?). She is smiling in a way which is quite the opposite of the intense look of grim concentration which can be seen on the face of most of the drivers of Aberdeen Cars as they do their important gridlocked duty in support of much-needed economic growth for the region. We do work of National Importance here. It's nothing to smile or smirk about.

Needless to say, none of these six signs are detectable in the drivers of Aberdeen Cars. Being nice and toasty inside our hot metal boxes, we have no need for hats, coats or gloves! We are unlikely to be outside ever at all, so no need for outdoor boots - it's trainers for us! Cool! Rucksacks and totebags - no need! Similarly, our metal bubble insulates us from ever having to run the risk of encountering anyone we don't know (except shop assistants and waiters); we never have any need to smile publicly, so we don't.

So, there you have it, the six signs to look out for. Be vigilant! These subversives are everywhere! Maybe you know one, maybe one of them is a friend or loved one. It is your duty as a driver of Aberdeen Cars to denounce these subversive elements. Use the Citizen Contribution hot-link to the top-right of the page to report them to us and we'll do the rest...

Vigilance will see us through these difficult times.

Fury at CarraigeWalking

Aberdeen City Council's latest anti-pedestrian policy initiative (not clearing the pavements of snow and ice) has, we are furious to report, backfired with upsetting results and serious consequences for public order in our town.

Close to schools (the safety of innocent children - who are our future - being a number one priority) while every snow-and-ice-clearing attention has been lavished, quite rightly, on the car-bearing carriagway, the council has stuck to its guns and refused to do anything about the pavements. This safety-first approach (because walking about the place without brakes, indicators, airbags or anything is as everyone knows, intrinsically dangerous) has rendered the pavement on Aberdeen's Broomhill Road completely unusable. Good. This policy initiative should encourage everyone to join in with the vast majority of folk, and get around in a nice car. It is particularly important that children be discouraged from dangerous walking, particularly in cold weather, when they might catch the sniffles.

Not gritted, not salted, not ploughed.
And quite right too.

But, and it's a big but, while we were initially delighted by this pro-car approach which we thought would finally force the last redoubts of anti-car sentiment to nip out to Arnold Clark and drive off with a seasonal bargain, we regret to say that the law of unintended consequences has struck, and we were today horrified to notice that these last few road-tax-dodging pestestrians who refuse to contribute to the economic growth of the region have adopted a radical new tactic from the anarchists cookbook: RADICAL CARRIAGEWALKING!

Harassed by the rioting anarchist, the elderly couple in the passing car were visibly shaken.

Perhaps emboldened by the student protesters hooligan anarchists thugs who took to the streets in London yesterday, these radical pestestrians have unilaterally occupied the tax-payer-only carriageways of West Aberdeen, striding up the middle of the road and willfully impeding the lawful progress of important hard-pressed motorists as they go about their lawful business on Her Majesty's highway generating much-needed economic growth for Aberdeen "City and Shire".

Showing no fear (perhaps on drugs?) the snarling rioter faces down the law abiding motorist.
Had the protester tried to touch the car, we might have been forced to ask a policeman to draw his sidearm.

Wildly swinging a placard with its obscene message (which we have been forced to blur with photoshop)
this sneering anarchist scans around for her next victim. 
We were scared she would touch the silver-grey Merc to her left.
Officer, may we suggest you use baton rounds?

Law-flouting pestestrian anarchist ring-leaders look to recruit
the anti-motorist bus-users to their subversive protests...
Send in the horses.

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.