Parking at the Airport

I was waiting for my sister to arrive from Kuala Lumpur on Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately there were also 3 other flights arriving within 15 minutes of each other. You can just picture how congested the airport parking area would be at that time. While waiting for my sister, I heard a car horn. It was a driver frustrated by a being blocked by another car waiting for a parking space to be vacated by an empire limousine.

This is typical parking ethics of Brunei Drivers. That driver wanted to park as close as possible to the arrivals hall. He blocked up the traffic for nearly 5 minutes. Just imagine how inconsiderate this guy was to the cars behind him, one of which was a taxi carrying a visitor to the country. The wife of the offending car even got out, went to check the arrivals screen, then came back to the car and took her daughter out of the car to wait within the arrivals hall. All of this happened while the car was still waiting for the parking space to be vacant. I do not think the driver minded as he was in a comfortable black lexus GS300. Eventually the driver of the limousine came back with the paid ticket and vacated the parking area.

Within the confines of the aiport, I could see a few bad parking ethics of Brunei drivers. I am so sorry to say that this is the mental state of some our drivers in the country and I have to emphasis that not all Bruneians are like this. To relieve my boredem, I decided to note down some of the poor practices that I saw on that day.

1. Park as near as possible to where you want to go. In this case it was the arrivals hall, specifically close to the ramp for the baggage trolleys. One should ignore other empty spaces. In other cases it can also be shop entrances or ATM machines.
2. Ignore obvious signs, either painted on the road or posted nearby. After the commotion, I managed to capture a photo of an MPV trying to park in the disabled spot. I think the driver saw me take a photo and decided to move away. Classic signs that are also ignore include "No Waiting", "VIP parking", "No Parking" and "Tow away warnings". The clamping sign is usually followed but I think some drivers confuse this with "Waiting area"
3. I can park anywhere as long as I am not blocking traffic. I think this is self explainatory. This was evident at the airport especially next to where the cars are parked diagonally. This creates slower traffic and can even be dangerous to other road users and pedestrians.
   
4. Always wait for cars to vacate their slots. Especially if the slot is close to the destination. No matter how long it takes for the person to put all the shopping in the car. Sometimes it is quite hard to fault these drivers, but some drivers block the whole way, even if there is enough space for another car to fit through. Some drivers even drive around parking areas slowly, following people with baggage trolleys to their cars.
   

I think I might have written quite a bit of the negative side of parking etiquette. There were also a few f=good points on parking that I saw on Sunday.

1. Enough parking space for everyone. Eventhough the area looked congested, there were still enough parking spaces for everyone, probably because people kept leaving the parking area.
2. Cheap/Affordable parking. the rate for parking at the airport is on par with the other paid parking in the country. 50cents per half hour is still quite good. Other airports would have charged more. There is also the premium area, but unfortunately on that afternoon it was blocked by the car waiting for that parking.
3. No excessive honking. I have to say, I only heard one car horn on that day. No other drivers lost their temper. I think this is a good mannerism of our drivers as compared to other countries.

In short, we should obey basic parking rules and use our common sense to park our cars. If we have no choice but to park at a distance, look at it as an oppurtunity to exercise and walk that extra distance to where we want to go.