Since I ran a recent item about Kildare County Council planning to put
double yellow lines on the bridge, I’ve had a couple of demurring contacts,
writes Brian Byrne.
One said it was absolutely unnecessary, as the northbound carriageway was wide enough to accommodate a couple of parked cars. The other said the lines would be ‘unsightly’.
So here’s this morning’s parking story. First, the Renault parks right back up against the ‘no parking’ cone, the driver obviously understanding that the cone is reserving the space for him or her.
Then the Skoda backs up in front of the Renault. The owner pops out, gaily tells us she’s taking her last chance at parking there ‘before the yellow lines come’.
As, some time later, she comes back and drives away over the bridge, the Volkswagen Touareg comes down and crosses the road to park on the blindest part of the turn, in the wrong direction, and on an existing pair of double yellows. The owner hops out and away to do some business. Leaving a passenger in the car, which presumably makes everything OK?
But there’s a small VW Polo which has to cross the centre line on a blind corner, hoping that a truck won’t be barrelling down the hill.
Then the Skoda, whose driver has turned somewhere and is coming back over the bridge, gets slightly caught in a jam caused by the original Renault and the Touareg
(poetic justice?). There’s an angry beep of a horn, not sure if it is her, or some other car discombobulated by her having to move onto the wrong side of the road, like the little Polo.
I don’t have a photo, but the last thing I saw was a Garda car having just come down town, stopped, then the owner of the Touareg arrives back and jumps in, drives across the traffic into the northbound lane, and away.
So we don’t need double yellow lines on the bridge? Well, we probably don’t, if people are going to uncaringly park on them anyhow.
“I’m only there for a minute …”
Sigh.
