It might be safer and his friends might disagree with him, but Tom Augustine is stuck behind reverse parkers and is struggling.
Picture, if you will, the hellscape that is the St Lukes Westfield carpark on 24 December. You still have presents to buy – it’s hard to find time! It’s hot and humid. It’s been raining. The cars in front of you are creeping so slowly as to be almost imperceptible. And then imagine, suddenly, there’s movement – you’re moving up maybe a metre or two! Is that an empty carpark you spy? But then, horror of horrors, the car in front of you jerks to stop. The reverse lights go on. The car creeps slowly backward – but you, too, have to reverse to allow them to squeeze into the open carpark they’ve spotted. The entire field of traffic once again comes to a standstill.
God forbid the driver ahead of you miscalculates their reverse trajectory, and has to reposition. The entire process seems to drag on forever. If they had just turned into the carpark like a normal person, then you’d be on your merry way already. Perhaps you’d have found a park of your own.
I tend to think of myself as someone able to consider the alternative position on things – I’ve been called a patient, hell, even Zen individual in my lifetime. That sense of ease goes out the window, however, when I encounter the selfishness of citizens reversing into mall carparks, particularly during the festive season. To me, this is a violation of the human principle – do unto others, and all that. Encountering one such carpark reverser recently (unsurprisingly, at St Lukes Westfield), I posted about it on my Instagram in highly diplomatic terms: “if you reverse into carparks at Xmas you’re worse than Hitler and I hate you’, I believe was my wording, and was shocked to discover that others did not share my sentiments.
Truly, I had awakened a dormant source of discourse lingering beneath our polite society, waiting to be debated. A friend asked me to conduct a poll – reverse carparking, good or bad? The results were: 77% anti, 23% pro. But these results were biased, probably by the fact that I posted the poll next to a picture of myself frowning, saying I’d be judging the answers accordingly. Surely most people recognise the act of reversing into a park as a selfish one amid the stress and hustle and bustle of the Christmas season? Is your brief moment of convenience when you return to your car really warranted by the extensive amount of time it takes to ensure you’re facing outward?
Allow me to present my case. My main reasoning is that, for all the logic one can present about how it’s safer to reverse into a carpark than out, for all the claims that it ultimately isn’t too much time wasted, I invite you to consider your fellow man, woman, or otherwise stranded in this abominable carpark, waiting behind you. No one wants to be there. No one enjoys being at a mall at Christmas time. Let’s be honest – everyone is stressed, tired, burdened by the expectations of consumerism as the day of our Lord’s birth approaches. Can we not, in these most belaboured of times, allow ourselves a slight amount of discomfort to leaven another’s? It’s a small gesture of commonality, saying hey, we’re all in this together, aren’t we? To reverse into a carpark at Christmastime is to put your own needs above others – not very Jesus-like, is it?
I don’t have any statistics to back me up on this. I’m working solely from my gut, and the intense sense of injustice I feel at seeing a smug-looking elder statesman backing his irresponsibly large vehicle into a tiny space as the rest of us wait, gripping the steering wheel and gritting our teeth. Reversing into a carpark is a time-heavy practice, something none of us have enough of during this period. I still find it exceedingly annoying at any other time of year, mind, but I am aware I’m in the minority and just need to maybe take a meditation course or something – but at Christmas, I feel like this should be something we all agree on.
If you’re a passenger in one of these vehicles, and you see your dad (look, it’s probably gonna be your dad) deciding to reverse into a carpark, maybe quietly remind him to think of the hopeless cretins behind him in the queue. They just want to buy some socks with candy canes on them from Typo for their least favourite co-worker Belinda (who they somehow pulled for the work Secret Santa) and get the hell out of there. Reversing out of a carpark? That’s the stuff of life, friend — the spice of taking a risk, of relying on the keen senses of your fellow drivers to observe your taillights. Heed my words, don’t be annoying if you don’t have to be.
Tom Augustine is a very nice man but he’s not a driving instructor, so consider this a festive rant rather than safety advice.
