Hot new parking game Author: Jeff Corbett Date: 09/11/2007 Publication: Newcastle Herald
YOU can get it ridin', you might even get it milking a cow, although it's more likely you get it as I get it mowing the lawn, sorting the shed or pruning my tomato bushes.
It is that little glow of satisfaction at something accomplished, something that stamps the day as one of achievement.
Jot down this number: 1300 884 899. It is the RTA mobility parking scheme hotline dedicated to dobbers of disability parking cheats and I am sure you will find it a wonderful tool for inducing that little glow.
Pangs of guilt at doing nothing? Rescue the day, go on a disabled parking patrol and take your phone and camera.
First up you might like to cruise the on-street disabled parking bays, those marked with a wheelchair, looking for cars not displaying a mobility parking scheme (MPS) card. Aah, the thrill when you spot one. Phone the hotline and retire to a nearby bench to watch the action.
The RTA says it will immediately ask the relevant council to send a parking officer out to issue a ticket. You should, of course, take a photo of the parking officer writing the ticket because that will be the central pic of a trio. For the first you used the delay button to photograph yourself standing in front of the offending car and phoning the hotline, and the third is a delicious culmination of your good work, the angry driver reading the ticket on his return.
If the driver is a woman or a physically challenged man you might like to show them the three shots, which will give you an opportunity to make it a stunning series of four. Hey, one such encounter would make any week outstanding!
There will soon be rich pickings in the car parks of Junction Fair Shopping Village and King Street McDonald's in Newcastle, because Newcastle City Council is drawing up an agreement to patrol their car parks. The council's parking officers will issue tickets at both for breaching a time limit and for unauthorised parking in disabled spots, and until that becomes well known you'll catch many interlopers in the bays with the wheelchair sign.
Oh the shock! The third and fourth shots will be rippers!
Even the most thrilling pastimes can become tedious so the RTA has suggested other reasons to call the hotline.
One especially rocks my socks. We've all sat in shopping centre car parks and seen people emerge from cars displaying MPS cards in disabled bays and hurry into the centre. What's wrong with them!
Well, take the vehicle registration number, if possible the number on the card and phone the hotline. The RTA will tell you that not all disability is immediately apparent, which is just an absolving statement, then set about investigating.
The investigators will use new powers that came into effect with the launch of the hotline a fortnight ago and which allow them to collect information on the disability claimed by MPS applicants and, most usefully, to require those already with an MPS card to obtain additional medical certificates to support their claim.
While photos of the hale and hearty emerging from or returning to the car don't add much to the brag album, because we can't photograph the result of our good work, the photograph may excite the interest of the investigator. You see, it is an offence to lend an MPS card or to use the card without the holder in the vehicle.
A hotline person told me yesterday to email photos to Customer Service Centre@rta.nsw.gov.au.
Hey, I've just had an idea. For a photo to complete the set you could tell the parkers you'll be sending a photo and a report to the hotline. Click click click.
Perhaps you know an MPS cardholder with a phony disability, or an office worker without even a phony disability who uses an MPS card to park free at a meter all day, and naturally you're dirty that you can't get one too. Hit the phones.
The test, by the way, is whether the MPS cardholder's "physical condition is detrimentally affected as a result of walking 100 metres", so we can put the cheats through a secret test over 100 metres and report the results.
I suggest you save a couple of names for a dull, rainy day when you can't get out.
jcorbett@theherald.com.au