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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to want to shout at people who can't work out how to use car patk ticket machines?

51 replies

Bethshine82 · 16/12/2011 15:41

And furthermore to kick them in the back of their ankles?
Why don't they know their reg number?
Why do they put their money in over and over and over again before realising that they have to put the reg number in FIRST?
Why do they put 50p in and then ferret around in their pockets, handbag etc for another 30p by which time the first lot of money has come back out and the whole process starts again?

I know it isn't very festive but I honestly thought my head was going to explode with rage after waiting behind several people doing exactly this earlier on today. In the rain.
Actually I didnt want to just kick them, I wanted to bloody kill them.

Maybe I have ishoos?

OP posts:
oldmerryolesoul · 16/12/2011 16:29

This is why I like Ringo. I know some people dont like the system but I like that I can swan past people doing that screwy up eye thing at the machineard. I only tend to use one carpark in Oxford and it remembers where and my card no.

BleurghUna · 16/12/2011 16:52

I've never had to put the reg number in a ticket machine. I would be one of those annoying people you are talking about OP!
Have you tried to help them? That would help speed up the queue.

Lafawnduh · 16/12/2011 16:55

oh how i'd like to tel you all about our car parking machines. I can't though in case my workplace is then tracked down and flashed across facebook.

You think fumbling for 30p is bad??????????????????????????????????

where I work THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS. and THREE YEARS of planning has resulted in chaos, tears and machines that speak Spanish.

NinkyNonker · 16/12/2011 16:58

I have never seen a machine ask for a reg number, apart from Ringo obviously.

LineRunnerCrouchingReindeer · 16/12/2011 16:59

OP I have a quarter of my 'FB Button' chill pill left. It's yours for a quid.

I need your registration number, the correct amount in 20p pieces, and your mother's maiden name.

Original poster
Bethshine82 · 16/12/2011 17:01

Oh god linerunner I can't remember my reg.
Let me think for a few minutes and then squint at the car to try to make out the letters and numbers.

OP posts:
Tenebrist · 16/12/2011 17:02

You seriously need an anger management course Grin

"And they should know their reg number. And have their ticket money."

Put yourself in other people's shoes. Whenever we're in the UK we rent a car for a week or however long. No way am I going to learn the reg for that car - there have been times I've forgotten the make and colour (which can get embarrassing when I have to find it again). The reg is usually written on the key you get given, but it still takes time to enter the whole thing. And as for money, if we've just come back to the UK we often have little change and have to fish around.

But I've never encountered anyone who looks as if they're going to kick us in the shins just for not being super quick. If ever we're dithering we apologise and people usually smile back and say 'no problem'. Often they offer to help, which gets the problem sorted out much quicker. So that either means you are the exception to the norm and are an exceptionally intolerant person, or it means that all those smiling people are a pile of hypocrites who just want to kick us for not knowing the system. Lovely.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 16/12/2011 17:33

I can't do my car reg number. I actually try to avoid parking where they have those metres in case I get it wrong, because the parking attendant jobsworth has ticked me off for transposing two letters before, which was obviously a cunning plan I had going, with my mate who just happens to own a car with almost exactly the same number as mine. Hmm

I'm dyslexic and can't carry numbers and letters in my head. So that's why I struggle. But some elderly people also find this difficult and may find the machine difficult to stoop down to in order to see it. For some people their car is a lifeline, especially if they're not very mobile, and it's quite important.

I know this sounds boring and worthy but your OP sounds petty and rude.

Original poster
Bethshine82 · 16/12/2011 17:38

I did mean it as a bit of a joke. I did find it frustrating but was exaggerating somewhat.

Ooops. Won't do it again.

OP posts:
Original poster
Bethshine82 · 16/12/2011 17:39
OP posts:
LRDtheFeministDragon · 16/12/2011 17:45

Nah, you're fine, it's mme being a pissy cow. Blush

Sorry, it is the bee in my bonnet.

I can moan with the best of them if you'd like to rant about other carparking irritations though?

startail · 16/12/2011 17:48

UABVVVU
A) There is only 1 £££ car park that does this so I don't do it if I va help it.
B) I'm dyslexic and I can't remember my Reg.
C) The key pad has the alphabet and numbers in vertical columns Confused

startail · 16/12/2011 17:51

But you are not as unreasonable as the idiot who designed said insane key pad.
Vertical columns Why!!!!

LRDtheFeministDragon · 16/12/2011 18:29

start - Oh My God Yes. WHY?!

Jenny70 · 16/12/2011 18:38

Frustrating for you yes, but there are reasons that people may not be familiar with the parking system.

I use hire cars and zipcars (think boris bike system, but with cars)... I have NO CLUE what the rego is, barely can recognise it to drive it away.

But I would read the instructions and look over the person in fronts shoulder to bluff my way through it.

Out of all the frustrating life experiences, this isn't one I have - but there are plenty of other things that make my head explode.

5318hoho8 · 16/12/2011 18:52

gawd yes, vertical keypads in Monmouthshire, nightmare; and the rejected coin slot is too farking narrow for my fat sausage fingers so I have to poke 'em out with my key and then the coin shoots onto the floor and on and on it goes sigh

OP, you could have offered to help/talk them through it

Goolash · 16/12/2011 18:53

I hate those type of tickets machines. There was only one place near us where they had one but luckily they got rid of it. The reason I hated it was that it didn't take personal number plates!! Kept telling me I'd not completed the feckin thing.

AnnoyingOrange · 16/12/2011 19:10

Add message | Report | Message poster FioFio Fri 16-Dec-11 15:44:26
I think you need to have a bit more patience. I always think if people had a bit more time for one another and were kind to strangers then we would actually live ina much happier society than we do at the moment.

Hear hear Fiofio

BarbaraMillicentR0berts · 16/12/2011 19:14

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 16/12/2011 19:30

'Dodgy places'?

They have them in North Oxford, which is one of the ponciest places I've ever seen.

Insomnia11 · 16/12/2011 19:43

We've all done it though surely? I know I've held people up at an unfamiliar train ticket machine because the touch screen wasn't working properly or it wasn't clear you were meant to press button X, and God, the first time I came across a Pay at Pump petrol station with no instructions...well, you can imagine. Or car park machines that don't like any pound coins you enter. And I have come across one (now changed to a straight forward machine) where you did have to put in your reg no which caused me a bit of puzzlement at first.

And I'm someone who people ask to show them how to use their phones as I'm quite good with gadgets. If I can't understand something then its unreasonably complicated AFAIC.

5318hoho8 · 16/12/2011 21:10

haha at Monmouth being dodgy, what with the Savoy theatre plus Waitrose and M and S Food cheek by jowl with Joules and White Stuff

alemci · 16/12/2011 21:26

I have never had to do this. sounds complicated.

lynniep · 17/12/2011 14:51

Shangri La? No LOL. I live in Cambridgeshire.

dementedma · 17/12/2011 15:42

WTF are you all talking about? Reg numbers, talking machines, taking your photo??? have never seen a machine here that does any of that. Thankfully.

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