Editor

The poet and novelist Charles Bukowski wrote ‘drive through hell, the people are weary, unhappy and frustrated’. All I can imagine is that the people to whom he was referring had had the singular misfortune to have encountered one of Ceredigion’s new parking machines.

The Twelve Labours of Hercules are child’s play compared to these misguided and confusing contraptions. Queues of the bewildered can be seen at each and every one, where the screen instructions appear to have been written in invisible ink, and those printed on the accompanying board are so far away that transactions are automatically cancelled as one leaps from machine to board for inspiration.

The machines default to Welsh, and whilst I have no problem with this, the button to change languages is small, and depicts two flags, neither of which is identified with name or colour to indicate which is which.

May not a tiny clue be given to the hapless user as to the function of the buttons, and the language to which each refers?

Instructions for selecting the length of parking time are equally unclear, and have resulted in many people inadvertently paying for a whole week’s parking instead of the single hour they were aiming and hoping for.

The positive side to these machines is that you can make many new and lifelong friendships whilst awaiting your turn. Unfortunately, in many cases these friendships are short lived, as so many people are giving up and leaving both the car park and the area.

I witnessed this at Sainsbury’s in Lampeter only this morning, where the two people involved were completely unable to obtain a ticket, and drove off swearing never to darken the doors of the supermarket ever again. Many more are deserting Aberaeron for the same reason.

I suggest this is sorted before West Wales becomes a ghost town.

Kathy Miles, Ffosyffin

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