Technological/practical "backward steps" we all just accept now

why are we not tagging these qr codes? maybe just even fill in a couple of the white squares.

The justpark phone number will no longer accept my bank card because a payment once failed to go through, and no idea how to fix it, I will not download their app, guess I just can't park.

I totally take the point about it being worse for people without phones, but when I'm faced with an old style pay and display car park now I tear my hair out ("What, I now have to trek back to the car, open it up and put this on the dashboard? I'm in a HURRY"). That's if I can figure out the UI of the machine in the first place.

Round our way they've covered all the on-street parking machines with black plastic, which is an eyesore.

There's a multistorey car park I use in Leamington Spa which used to have an automatic reg recognition system, pay on exit, etc. then last year they ripped it all out and replaced with pay-and-display paper ticket machines on every floor. how's that for a backwards step? though I don't actually mind the machines (which accept contactless) I don't like having to leave the kids in the car while I walk there and back, because they will fight, get out of the car, etc.

If there’s no cash option, it’s discriminatory and fuck it; but also, if there’s no non-cash option, it’s discriminatory and fuck it. Here in Philly, it is perhaps one of the only official systems that works— there are zones and kiosks at every zone that either take card or cash, or you can use the app and pay that way. Shouldn’t be a hard problem to solve.

Now don’t get me started on SEPTA, our public transit system. At least they’re beginning a phone-based payment system finally, after years of using a system of RFID chip cards that…get this… expired. Like, I had to buy a new card and load it with funds even tho my old one had funds on it. Just to ride the subway for a few miles. Insanity.

On the subject of reg recognition: having to go into a shop and wait in a queue to pay for petrol while my car sits blocking the pump seems mad to me when the forecourt has plenty of cameras.

I now have THREE separate parking apps, and they're always required in places with no signal/wifi. Fuck them to hell. Usually no card reader either.

Quite honestly it drives me nuts how the default assumption is "everyone has a smartphone" in so much of society, which tabes otm, is discriminatory.

My company once changed the system for calling out unplanned from calling a voicemail and leaving the details to an Android/iOS cell phone app. Sure enough, one or two training classes later, two employees said they didn't have smart phones, what do they do, and leadership was flummoxed like they literally hadn't expected.

But back to parking - not ALL parking apps are clumsy, but so many of them make you do a lot of work. What I also hate is that these apps SHOULD provide you with added convenience - i.e., you paid through 10 pm but you got held up. Cool, I'll just relog into the app and add some additional time!

Except all of them I've used, even though you set up an account, it knows your license plate and (if applicable) your space number, you go to add more time, but it doesn't allow you to. It counts the time you are purchasing from time of purchase and doesn't incorporate the time you already paid for. So you have to wait for it to expire first

I don't like having to leave the kids in the car while I walk there and back, because they will fight, get out of the car, etc.

This is on u for raising feral crime kids imo

One time I left my kid unattended when getting gas and these 2 bikers started harassing them and he threw a boomerang and killed one of them

Quite honestly it drives me nuts how the default assumption is "everyone has a smartphone" in so much of society, which tabes otm, is discriminatory.

Round here you can pay by text message as well, so a dumb phone will do. Not that everyone has one of those either.

Once got talking to an elderly lady at an airport who asked me "why is everyone always on their PHONES". Thought she wanted to do the usual boomer rant about this but turned out, no, she genuinely did not know what the functionalities of a smartphone were.

it is indeed my fate to walk the earth as the shamed father of two feral crime kids, at least until one of them goes off to uni I suppose

I remember my nan tutting at everyone wearing headphones at a local historic attraction. They were listening to the audio guide!

Theres new underground carparks near me that are cashless in a good way - it reads yr licence plate, so if youre there less than the 1 or 2 hours it allows, all is well and it lets you out. They should just do that for onstreet parking - read the plate, charge nothing if it less than X window of time, if over X, send a bill/charge to CC. No cash for inspectors to have to collect, no need for apps, no fucking around looking for which machine to pay at.

All that said I've NFI how they'd put a camera in to record a paralell-parked car on the road.

. . . i don't even own a car

https://media.tenor.com/FFnlR-x5mTEAAAAC/nathan-fillion-but.gif

tbf i was totally put off cars by hook turns

the car has to enter the spot at some point right

why are we not tagging these qr codes? maybe just even fill in a couple of the white squares.

― pplains, Monday, July 3, 2023 10:13 PM (yesterday)

this is a beautiful idea

apps are good

Leave room for the entree

How much to print 500 stickers with QR codes leading to carfree.com or thewaroncars.org to paste over those parking signs.

QR code leading to pics of Tubgirl

I like parking apps. Hated having to find ways to make change before taking a trip downtown.

Count me among the haters. I don't own a car, so I only encounter these things when I'm traveling in a rental or a borrowed car. So I'm on the road, going from town to town, and inevitably it's some different app than the one before, or the app wants me to enter my password which I certainly don't remember, etc. etc. I guess I'm just annoyed at the idea of keeping multiple different apps installed on my phone so I can hypothetically park if I'm ever again in a town that happens to have been suckered by the same app company as one that I've used in the past. (The entire thing seems like an obnoxious way for a private company to slip in and grab a slice of what should be a fairly basic and easily-implemented municipal function and revenue stream...)

My city still has parking meters that take change as well as an app for the same spaces. Half an hour is something like 25¢ while the app charges you 35¢.

I'm comfortable with this. Making more options available rather than taking some away. I carry around quarters in an Altoids tin like an old man, but the app is convenient (and worth the small surcharge) because I can extend my time without going back to the car to plug in more quarters.

However, I don't frequent the private lots anymore since they removed the cash option and now have QR codes on the kiosk. I was carrying around an Android J3 up until last year. It barely could read QR codes for restaurant menus.

put it this way - I'd be fine w/ an app if that wasn't the only way to pay for parking, like give me options!

and also don't make me go through hoops in the process, like there's one parking app I have which even if you scan the QR code, doesn't know exactly which parking lot you're at, you have to search for it or enter the number from the sign or some shit, before you can even get to the stage of paying.

whereas there's one local lot here which literally you click a link, go right to payment and enter your space number, and boom...it's easy and over in two minutes. I wish they were all like that.

xpost pplains otm

I carry around quarters in an Altoids tin like an old man

you are literally my dad

I'm still proud of you.

i have somehow managed to avoid these up until now, but i don't doubt that i will hate them in the future when they are imposed on me.

Last year I stayed at a hotel in New Orleans that used a parking garage with a really bad and confusing online app. Parking was supposed to be covered in the price of the room, but the garage had many signs giving dire warnings about not leaving your car there for any tiny amount of time without registering on the app. So I registered and paid for a space and of course was told by the hotel that under no circumstances would they refund anything I already paid for parking. There was zero information about how any of this was supposed to work, which I'm pretty sure was the point, it all felt extremely scammy.

The entire thing seems like an obnoxious way for a private company to slip in and grab a slice of what should be a fairly basic and easily-implemented municipal function and revenue stream...

this

^^

maybe by city is just so dysfunctional they haven't even thought of this additional way to fuck things up?

I can’t even guess at the number of accounts I’ve made for sites/apps that I only needed to use a single time.

what I also hate is meters of any kind where you're in a part of the day/week where paid parking isn't required, but the system doesn't shut off intake of payment and willfully accepts your money. obv intentional because they know they'll bilk a lot of people who don't realize.

I used to go to see shows at the Orpheum at its old location in Ybor City and always parked in the same paid lot across the street, for about 4-5 years, including Sundays. One day I got out to pay and someone said "you don't have to pay on Sundays" and pointed at the part of the sign I missed. so for four years I probably paid like $80 in parking I didn't have to because they intentionally didn't program the machine to indicate parking was free during those off hours/days.

there's also the paranoid part of me that always assumes I misread the sign so I probably DID notice but just assumed that since the machine was telling me to pay that I had to. been towed out of town before and it sucks bad enough that I like to prevent it.

_The entire thing seems like an obnoxious way for a private company to slip in and grab a slice of what should be a fairly basic and easily-implemented municipal function and revenue stream..._

this

thing about ParkMobile/ParkWhiz and similar sites is a lot of the companies who partner with it don't always account for it properly.

there was one time I used ParkWhiz to park at a lot out of town and the attendant had never heard of it and had to consult his supervisor as to whether he could take my "confirmation" without paying. and on multiple occasions, where the parking site didn't account for the # of prepaid spots when determining capacity, so I showed up and the lot was full already (one of the times I got out, moved the cones, and parked on the side somewhere because I had no time to find another spot).

(referring to prepaid parking that is)

the app is convenient (and worth the small surcharge) because I can extend my time without going back to the car

I did forget to mention the time I drove a different car to work, forgot to update the info and got a parking ticket anyway.

you know what's a technological step backward we all just accept now? the automobile 😎

if we're talking Flintstones car there are steps forwards and backwards

they only work if you have a good pair of bongos

you know what's a technological step backward we all just accept now? the automobile 😎

I'm too traumatized by the parking app I tried to use in Leeds to post here. All I can say is that it took 45 minutes to get to the cruel "I'm sorry, but cannot add foreign credit cards or banks to your account" knifetwist at the end.

i mean the most prominent thread result on ilx for leeds does read, iirc, "that vile remnant of the north" so you ought to have been on notice imo

if it bleeds, it's Leeds