Parking in Hamilton

After reading the opinions of some motorists on the Corporation of Hamilton’s new clamping policy, I can understand why the Corporation is having to spend $300,000 to secure the city’s car parks with automatic barriers too.

If you object to clamping on the grounds that it might make people mad, or cause retailers to lose business, or because we need to be more laid back, or because “it’s horrible”, or (my favourite) because something might happen “out of your control” that results in you not putting a ticket on your car, you should be embarrassed. Take responsibility for your actions, for God’s sake. If you don’t want to be clamped, pay the parking fee.

That said, I sincerely hope that the new parking machines will accept more than quarters and dollar coins. With it costing $5 per day to park at Bull’s Head, ensuring that you have enough loose change to stuff into the machine each day takes planning and strong pockets. A lack of change must be a contributing factor to at least some of the cars left without tickets.

At a minimum, I hope the new machines will accept bills and change. Better, they’ll take credit and debit cards too (as the machines at the airport do). Best of all would be if they accepted a stored value card like London’s Oyster card, which, in an ideal world, would be accepted on the buses and ferries too.