Sue’s Views: The trouble with car guards

Yellow bibs, wraparound shades and caps in place come rain, wind or shine there they are waving their arms like teetering windmills as they urge you to reverse to their well-known litany of “Kom, kom, kom….stoooop.”

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am well aware that people in this profession opt to do this as a last resort as a means of making an honest income but the time has come to call a spade a spade’and social niceties be darned.

As it happens, a practice by many malls in the area is to charge car guards for an allocated spot, so they are forced to pay for the privilege of guarding (a term used very loosely here I might add) your car.  Is it not time that these malls with their outrageous rentals at best pay for this as a service to their customers?  After all, they want your money and patronage in their stores.

I baulk at the thought that an additional payment of R2 or R5 is expected when I have just popped into the store for a bottle of milk or to use an ATM.  As to the notion that my car is being guarded I prefer to take my chances in the parking bays located far from the store entrance where car guards are non-existent.

ALSO READ:  Spare a thought for the car guard

Why?  I had an experience at one of our large malls where I happened to chance upon the car guard opening the rear door of the car parked next to mine to enable a mother to strap her baby into the car seat. Car door flung open straight into my car door and not one of them gave a hoot except they didn’t bargain on me being in the vicinity.

Needless to say, an altercation went down with the mother blaming the car guard and the car guard blaming the mother…did it help me?  Did it heck – my car door was damaged.  To add insult to injury on leaving the parking bay the car guard did his arm flapping number and held his hand out for money.

Which brings me to another point…in most cases, they are more of a hindrance than a help as they jump behind your car and make reversing out of the parking bay laborious and time-consuming in your efforts to avoid knocking them down.  Not forgetting the wounded look given when you scrabble around for change.

So no, car guards and I do not see eye to eye and one of my guilty pleasures is having a car parking bay empty in front of me where I can pull forward and go leaving them windmilling madly in my rear view mirror.  Sue 1 – car guard 0 – shame on me.

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