Tell me, is it me or the city council that is weird?

Tell you something la. The above is my hand drawn chart. I haven’t got a chance to take a photo yet but naik api already so gotta blog this first.

The car is going in the direction I show with the black arrow. Our Majlis Perbandaran Pulau Pinang, the city council has recently converted the parallel parking along busy, busy, jam-packed Gurney Drive to the angle I show above with yellow lines.

Which means, you gotta do reverse parking. Which makes it easier and safer for the parked cars to get out of the parking lot. I think is the reasoning used by our very smart, very efficient council people.

But….the road is very narrow and only one car can pass at each time. This is not some shopping mall parking lot. Assuming red car wanted to do a reverse parking, purple car followed too closely. Doesn’t this mean red car can’t go in? Wouldn’t that red car cause major traffic jam if it insist to park? Red refuse to budge, purple refuse to reverse?
Or say you are in the purple car and you also wanted that prime parking lot…you can easily nudge red car, whom may had waited for the lot by just inching very close so that the red car can’t get into the car park. (wah…I can imagine Ah Bengs caused bloodshed over a parking lot)
And now, the real world. I am not very good with reverse parking, especially when I am driving my 7-seater. I can never ever get into the lot with one swoop. Not with that angle and on busy Gurney Drive where cars are bumper to bumper. I bet a lot of people has the same problem too.

So, in my opinion, it would have make more sense to change the angle like this.

So, our good council had spent lotsa money to paint it like picture 1, changing from parallel. Now, let’s see if people are going to tell them to paint it like my picture 2. If they do that, then, the story of the donkey, father and son applies.

Remember to vote for me when I run in the next election. 😛

Added :

The wise doc suggested :

30 thoughts on “Tell me, is it me or the city council that is weird?

  1. they purposely one la! do u know how many % does the fler gets whenever he give out a job? ngek ngek ngek …. derno lehhhh lol

  2. Even my housing estate area also like that one… We (even I as a new driver) have to always gostan park inside.

  3. What lar, why draw the lines that way?? So, Lilian, when are you running for council? perhaps, when your little boy reach secondary school? We can use some logic thinking members in the council, in particular Penang. I wonder what happen to all the hoo-hah on the public transport. Sudah settle ke? like its getting quieter now in the papers. Sigh….so, my vote is set ready for you. Can help you print poster and lekat everywhere too. =)

  4. i think you should run for the council. We ll sapport u all da way!! Councillor Chan 🙂

  5. They actually get the system correct this time round.

    Method:
    SLOW DOWN.
    INDICATE RIGHT and HAZARD ON.
    MOVE TO RIGHT.
    REVERSE PARK.

    Reason behind this is that you can see monyet driver coming, cos if U reverse back to main road, someone drive fast will bang kimchai!

    This takes into consideration our drivers are all LESEN BELI type, like to tail gate etc.

    Technical Descriptive:
    The Diagonal Reverse Parking method is more prefered as the driver does not have his view obstructed upon joining into the main carriageway reducing the blind spot on the driver end compared to blindly reverse into the carriageway with only 3.5Meters of view of the traffic which indicates that the latter is only feasable with speed limit of 7Km/h compared to 120′ angle of view by the driver merging forward from the lot,which works with a 5 car length distance, appropriating a assumed speed of 30km/h.

    chim enuff?

    Layman: reverse to street only can IF VERY SLOW TRAFFIC. REVERSE TO LOT is for SPEED LIMIT of 30Km/h

  6. Courtesy, woman, courtesy!! If u see car in front want to reverse & park, stop and wait patiently (for “some drivers”, have to be more patient than others). If u want to park, signal earlier…so people behind won’t bump into ur backside. Park quickly so as not to try the patience of those waiting…and hopefully, ur rear bumper got those beepers that go beep…beep frantically if ur backside is near hitting something hard! (Hey, Wuching! I’m talking about parking the car lah!)

  7. i vote for 5xmom to be councillor!

    stp, no ur not! ur hinting u wanna get rammed up ur big backside! hahahaha!

  8. Lilian, I’m innocent!! That Wuching has a peverted mind! Gee! Don’t we all know that already! Look at what he posted in his blog! Naked woman playing football! How degrading for the female species (or some of the male? That’s all they have on their minds?)

  9. Aiyo!! STP go argue in Wuching’s blog lah…hehehhe..memang virus…

    Aunty, man, the parking is really cacated..but I guess STP has a point but good grief, drivers nowadays are already bad as it is, give them normal parking and they take up 2 spots, this one even worse, they will most likely do a parallel parking and end up taking 3 or more spots 🙂

  10. Maybe if the cars changed their colour to black and white respectively. No grey-grey colour. Then things will be a lot easier. In other words easier to change the colour of the cars rather than the colour of the line on the road. BTW maybe things will be easier if the council changed the yellow colour to something more flourescent. If they used flourescent colour only then Lilian’s problems will be solved.. get it?

  11. Yes, was down in penang last week and saw this weird parking arrangement in gurney, dunno why they do tat, not very smart, better use the old method la, just slide in to the place not reverse park, local culture cannot adapt to this strange position and bad for fung shui. Anyhoo, I heard that they are going to build a highway on the sea in front of gurney…. true? Cheers!

  12. Laksa…Sounds very close to YB Lily that we have here in Sarawak…by the way, she’s been nominated for St. Peter’s Church Parish Council..hahaha..election is this weekend…if she looses this one then I think she better dont bother to campaign for the State Election and St. Peter is in her consituency again..hahaha

  13. x)

    Remove 90% of the car park and bring back the tram. Less pollutions and less traffic problem. Oh wait, those municipal councils are into gold rush now, why should they care about reducing traffics problem?

  14. Hey, laksa…councillor, u don’t call YB or Yang Berhormat eh? Yalah, QV…I will not respond to wuching’s remark! Not nice to argue in other people’s blog…! (And I can think of more than 1 person who does that!!!)OK…Lilian, am I not the nicer one of the lot?

  15. Hey aunty lilian (sorry la…ure around my mom’s age..cant call u by name..lol) ..been reading your blog regularly and i just love it..its so mature,intellectual and informative and yet funny..about the car parking thing you’re right..its a simpler method..btw..care to be my msn friend? add me lah.hehe.

    take care Ms Lilian!

    Irfy.

  16. OMG! I’ve only been out of the country for 3 months and this is what happen? What sort of redundant ideas do the city council have up their sleeves to torture us citizens for next time eh? As much as I love Penang (born and breed there) there still are little things like this that ticks me off. Seriously.

  17. Saw the change last week. No problem for me though.

    The problem is when there are lots of cars parked, you hardly notice is there a free lot or not unless you drive very slowly.

  18. Although not discounting the idiocy of local councils, we can see the setup from another point of view:
    The problems you mentioned wil be there even if the angle is reversed. There will be a jam when cars are getting out. And since the cars are reversing, it will be more cumbersome. It is a question of “susah dulu, senang kemudian” or vice versa. The best bet is lots parallel to the road. Safer,less obstructive but less lots too.

  19. Looks pretty inconvenient too either way. I think maybe folks are gonna just ignore the lines and cincai park! 😛

  20. It’s FAR better than how We park in the UK, ie: PARALLEL PARK ON OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE ROAD.

    Dangerous enuff rite?

    But then, people here are ‘trained’ to be courteous and patient, unlike back home. Here, it’s part of the Hiway Code and Driving Test : SAFETY & COURTESY

  21. Consider the following:

    REVERSE parking puts the trunk of the car over the sidewalk. Very nice when shopping.

    Children tend to run towards the back of a car when they get out as the door blocks the front. REVERSE parking means they run towards the sidewalk, NOT the street.

    A driver is normally closer to the front edge of a car than the rear. In REVERSE parking this means less of your car has to stick out into traffic when looking to see if the way is clear.

    The hood (boot) of the car is usually lower than the back of a car, especially for SUVs. REVERSE parking means that you have better sight of traffic with less blockage from the vehicle next to you.

    Try it for six months and see if you don’t change your mind.

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