London, England - It’s not often that I take the side of traffic officers in a dispute over parking. But there’s a first time for everything - and today I propose we all raise our glasses to whoever decided to slap a yellow ticket on the white Smart car belonging to Gloucestershire businesswoman Vanessa Price.
Price has just won a court action against her council in Stroud. It has withdrawn the £50 (R900) ticket she was given last year for parking her Smart car at a right angle to the kerb so that it jutted out into the road.
A parking penalty tribunal ruled in her favour, finding that she had not breached any traffic regulation order by leaving her car as she did - as you don’t have to park within the lines of limited waiting spaces (where you can park free for a short period of time) on the road.
“I tried to reason with the officer but he was having none of it,” said Price, recalling the incident. “A lot of people were coming out of the shops and taking photos and saying how wrong it was.”
But, having studied the photo showing her parking habits, I somehow doubt it was the traffic warden these onlookers thought was in the wrong. Just have a look yourself.
First, Mrs Price’s car is quite clearly about 20cm over the dotted white lines which mark the designated parking bay. Second, it’s parked in a way that appears to make it almost impossible for the cars either side of it to get out without denting her shiny white Noddymobile.
PREJUDICED
All right. I admit it, I’m prejudiced. I hate Smart cars. I’ve loathed them ever since I glimpsed the first ones, crawling along the streets of London - from 0 to 100 in about half an hour - some time in the mid Noughties.
The Smart was the brainchild of Nicolas Hayek, the man who invented Swatch watches. His idea was for a small, fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly car that would be easy to park in small, city spaces.
The Swatch company started working with car giant Daimler-Benz in 1995 and the first Smart was shown at the Frankfurt motor show in 1997.
The car’s maker boasts that its vehicles - from exterior to seats, even the battery - are 98 percent recyclable, and each car is classified as an Ultra Low Emission Vehicle. They run on regular diesel or petrol, but are considered eco-friendly because they use less than four litres per 100km and their carbon emissions are low.
The truth, though, is that the Smart masquerades as something modest, simple, practical and back-to-basics when, in fact, it’s just a poseur’s gimmick.
Driving a Smart is the modern version of those horrid old back window stickers that used to say: “My other car is a Porsche.” Except the difference is that if you have a Smart, your other car probably is a Porsche.
Have a look at the price list and you’ll see what I mean. These things aren’t manufactured for peanuts by some charming little yogurt-weaving collective in Wales. They’re made in Germany by Daimler, with pricing to match.
Even the most basic, two-door model won’t leave you with much change out of R200 000.
MOTORISED SKATEBOARD
This, I concede, would be pretty good value for a real car. But we’re not really talking about real cars here, are we?
We’re talking something more akin to a jumped-up fairground bumper car. Or maybe a two-seat motorised skateboard with a roof on it. One that can’t travel very far without a refill - hence the need for that Porsche (or whatever) for those awkward, longer journeys which aren’t simply about popping out from your town house to stock up on caviar.
But this isn’t about inverted snobbery or class war, I promise. I’m all for rich people spending lots of money on luxury goods to boost the economy.
What I resent about Smarts is that they’re neither a deliciously self-indulgent luxury nor an honest, horny-handed necessity. Rather, they’re the embodiment of one of the grisliest new trends in this hideously shallow modern age of ours: the ecological boast.
Ecological boast goods are things you buy not because you really want them or you need them, but rather because they show the world how caring you are.
There are quite a few cars that fit into this category: the Prius, for example, which no sane person would go near if it weren’t for purposes of moral grandstanding because it’s so horribly tinny and uncomfortable.
RICH PEOPLE’S TOYS
Also in this category, of course, is any battery-powered car. These are another rich person’s toy: not least because it’s handy to have a townhouse with sufficient parking space in front for you to be able recharge it through your window at night. It’s no coincidence that Smart is now introducing an electric range.
All in all, it is as if we were being lectured: “Forget all that reactionary nonsense about striving to make your life ever more enjoyable and comfortable. And, instead, strive to make yourself a better person by paying through the nose to ride in a vehicle about as spacious as the Black Hole of Calcutta and so flimsy that if you collide with anything bigger than a bicycle you will likely be squashed flat. After all, it’s not about you: it’s about saving the planet!”
Which, of course, precisely explains the insufferable arrogance of Smart owners. The reason they think they can park wherever they can, regardless of the inconvenience caused to their fellow road-users, is because they genuinely believe they hold the moral high ground.
There has, so far as I’m aware, been no change to the Highway Code that says: “Smart drivers are exempt from parking regulations because they use less petrol and therefore save the planet from global warming.”
But the way most of them carry on, you’d never guess it, would you?
Daily Mail