Of Soldiers and Child Protection, etc.

The other day I was detailed to undertake what seems to have become a regular job for a new company situated just opposite my home, taking their products to Pinewood Studios.  Unlike the last time, when I was held up by fog, traffic and what we euphemistically call 'magnetic sheet syndrome', this week I suffered no delays and arrived at around 7.45.

As I waited in the sunshine for the first members of staff to arrive at the particular office where I was delivering, I noticed that just opposite was a creche.  It is situated just inside the staff entrance to the site, ideally placed for working parents to call in, settle their young children for the morning, and then carry on their journey to their place of work.

My observation of this unfolding of many people's daily routine prompted some reflection, the product of which I will now share with you, dear reader.  Think for a moment of your breakfast table (or someone else's, if appropriate.)  You have overcome the 'Gulliver's Travels' moment, have removed the chosen end of that boiled egg, and are about to attack it with your soldiers.  Would you even think of holding the floppy end of your bread and dipping the crust into the golden egg-yolk?  No.  The crust provides a convenient handle; available for another quick dip before it too is consumed.  To perform the operation in reverse would invite the collapse of the soldier, leaving a stubby crust-end floating uselessly in the egg: truly a breakfast time disaster.

Now rejoin me in your mind's eye, watching those parents drive up to the creche.  Each of them in turn pulled into one of about half a dozen parking spaces by the roadside, switched off the engine, emerged from the driving seat and went round to the rear door on the other side of the car.  Here they released the child from the internal seat, and either helped him/her or waited while he/she emerged from the vehicle.  At that precise moment, the only barrier between the child and the passing traffic, - perhaps only six feet away - is mummy's arm, or worse, only her voice.  How much better to have reversed into the parking space, the results of which would be a) the moving traffic would be a further four feet away; and b) the opening car door would be a protecting barrier for the child.  It would also form a guide, channelling the child naturally towards the safety of the creche.

The design of the motor vehicle, with the steering bit at the front, is not readily compatible with the requirements of the parking manoeuvre, i.e. the need to adjust the position of the end of the car that is last to enter a parking space.  I continue to be amazed at the high percentage of people who prefer to drive forwards into a space rather than reverse in - often making no adjustment whatsoever to the position of either vehicle or driving wheels once the end of the bonnet has reached the far end of the space.  As an addicted people-watcher, particularly one with a professional interest in this specific aspect of behaviour, my guess is that this figure is around 80 to 85%.

Obviously a degree of shunting is necessary somewhere to get either into or out of a parking space, so why not carry this out in the most favourable and most beneficial way?  Apart from the child protection aspect I noticed this week, the benefits of reverse parking are many.  Take first the question of safety.  When you approach the parking space, you are already aware of the surrounding traffic situation: you know which other vehicles are moving, and where they're going.  Advantage can be taken of this information in order to reverse safely into a space.  If you drive straight in, your later manoeuvre to leave will of necessity render you more vulnerable.  It will be conducted when you have to assess the behaviour of other vehicles either before you get into the car, by which time the situation may well have changed; or from a driving position where your vision is restricted by adjacent cars, and where the possibility of eye-contact with other drivers is almost non-existent.  There's also the matter of fuel economy - an all-important consideration when prices are constantly increasing!  Manoeuvres carried out with a warm engine will use less fuel than the same tasks carried out with a cold one.

Our town planners don't help in coping with this dilemma.  The centre of Letchworth has recently been improved, with neat parking spaces along the main shopping street, along which traffic is one-way.  Unfortunately these spaces are rigidly laid out at an angle - an angle which means that you have to park in the direction of travel, and reverse out into the flow of traffic.  As a van driver, I find these spaces virtually unusable for, in addition to the foregoing considerations, my rear vision is severely restricted, and the only way to emerge is simply to 'hope and go', relying on the alertness, consideration and generosity of other drivers - which is by no means a universal commodity!  For the reasons I have outlined, it would have been better if the echelon parking had been laid out in the opposite direction, so that drivers reversed in and drove out, but planners are hardly going to consider safety and economy in the face of the four-fifths or more of the driving population who are set in their habits of 'drive, stop and run away', and give no thought to the essential aftermath,