Covent Garden Community Association - Residents Parking Rage

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"Residents' Parking in Camden-C", 1998 Tournament.

This game has enjoyed increasingly heated popularity among young and old over the last twelve months.

A little history...

"The Covent Garden Residents Parking Game" emerged informally, probably in the 1980's, as a result of the meeting of several opposing teams. The small, but increasing number on the "Car Owning Residents" team (team A) had to jostle for restricted place with:

B: the "Tourists in Vehicles Great and Small" team, made up of strong international players capable of playing around the clock;
C: the "Night-Out on the Towners" team from Greater London and the Home Counties, boasting some fearless regulars and other promising occasional players, whose tactics play at best advantage during the hours of darkness.
D: the "Accessing Local Businesses" players, once the preserve of executive cars and small vans, but now sponsored by multinational container trucks. Team D works in perfect harmony with Team C, although their members rarely meet each other, since Team D's tactics are to field their best and noisiest players before 7am, with a rearguard action throughout the day.

By the early 1990's most residents would probably agree that the game had become a recognised sport. In the 1997 CGCA annual report, suggestions were made for the Board Game version, in which the fate of each hapless Team A player was dictated by the chance according to the 'space' (or lack of it) on which he and his vehicle might land. He might be towed, fined or given the legal run-around.

1998...

This year brings a new, multimedia version of the game. It enables each member of the "Car Owning Residents team" to meet other players and experience high emotion in an apparently virtual reality environment.

One enters the game through one of a few access roads, the most popular being Endell Street, Monmouth Street or Great Queen Street. Almost immediately one is able to experience full speed action, as taxis emerge from nowhere and pedestrians walk backwards towards you.

Always remember: the aim of the game is to find an empty, legal parking space.

The street rushes towards you, you dodge adroitly the mayhem of loading, minicabs, drunks and laughing parking attendants. As you steer, your eyes are peeling the roadside. You are programmed to pick out each pale blue residents 'C' parking permit on passing windscreens. About 30% of the windscreens you pass in your usual road have none, and you are able to feel the full flush of emotion towards the unseen driver of each. Then you see one from which the driver is just walking away. You halt, block the traffic and jump out. This is a truly sophisticated piece of software, as you feel the rain lash down your face. You contain the emotion stored against the 10 drivers whose cars you have passed in YOUR bays, in order to resist temptation to physical violence against this single one. This time you are lucky, the chap is a new player from the "Tourists in Vehicles Great and Small" team. He is French, and believes you when you make 'your car will get towed' motions - because in Paris this actually happens. Numerous vehicles are backed up behind you, honking even though it is midnight. You know that your neighbours are trying to sleep, but you are driven, like one possessed, by the need to catch this one space while you can. Monsieur Malgaré speeds away. The screen flashes: "Well Done, you parked in less than 30 minutes! Pity about having to unload the car, in the rain and the dark, half a mile from home. Better luck next time".

Next day you are not so lucky. It is 10pm, and members of the "Night-Out on the Towners" team are out in full force. It is 10.45pm by the time you give up. You have experienced all the emotions of last night's game several times over. The only option is a loading bay with 4 feet of space at one end, which you have already passed 4 times. You cut your losses and park on it anyway, hoping that as you are half parked legally, you will only have to pay half the ticket (the pollution of the traffic jams is addling your brain). You stick your last 5 objection leaflets on the windscreens of a fraction of the non-resident cars parked in YOUR bays. In a last desperate attempt to score some points in the game, you call the Parking Enforcement mobile number and ask them, please, can they at least ticket them to make you feel better? No, the tired voice says: although the signs say 'residents only from 6.30pm', this is apparently not clear enough for non-residents so it would be simply horrid to penalise the parkers. Camden will change the signs next month, but meanwhile no one can be ticketed. Ah, but YOU can be ticketed. Then the truth dawns: such logic in the powers that be has a place only in true reality. The game is over for another night, and you log-on to the 'respark rage' page on the CGCA website to remember other members of the team injured in the past season's play.

We hope that in the coming year many improvements will be made to the game. The aim of these is to achieve shorter playing times for residents to find bays. Initiatives afoot are mentioned in the Parking and Clear Zones report in the CGCA Annual Report 1998/99 and a report on next season's play should reveal the results.

Amanda Rigby