As most of you know, I hold a Mobility Parking Permit which enables me to park in a spot reserved for disabled drivers. Because my leg injury has taken a long time to heal and will probably never be really up to me being able to walk long distances, my doctor suggested that I apply. Most of the time it has been an absolute blessing as the fine print has revealed that I am not only entitled to use disabled spots but also other restricted areas as long as I display my pass on the windscreen.
However, at Phillip Island last weekend, I encountered my first real problem with the Mobility Parking Scheme. Driving into the circuit through the access tunnel under the main straight, I was directed to P6 parking area, the area that was designated on my car sticker. I soon realised that this wasn’t going to work. P6 is right down at the end of the domestic pit enclosure/garages, overlooking the Southern Loop. Since the Press Room is in the first floor of the main pit garages (immediately opposite the long white building at the top of the picture shown) there wasn’t a chance in hell that I’d be able to walk all that way, lugging my bag and equipment (it would have been extremely difficult even without the bag and equipment).
So, I turned around and drove back to the entrance where a parking officer was on duty at the tunnel exit (seen on this picture just NORTH of the pedestrian overbridge) “Excuse me,” I said, “Can you tell me if there are disabled parking spots?” ‘Yeah, mate, I’m sure there are, I just don’t know where. Park your car over there near the scrutineering bay and I’ll call Phil, he’s in charge of parking.” (The scrutineering bay is the bright white building with the cars parked out the front)
So I parked and waited as Greg (the parking attendant) tried to contact Phil on the radio. Just as he was about to give up and had told me to leave the car where it was, Phil arrived. I repeated my question. “Yes, there ARE disabled parking spots but you’re not going to like it when I tell you where they are.” he said. He then told an astonished me AND Greg that the disabled spaces were over on the OTHER SIDE OF THE TRACK at the foot of the pedestrian footbridge!!!
“You’re kidding,” I said, “How the hell are disabled people supposed to park their cars over there and then get into the pits up the stairs and across the bridge and down the stairs on the other side?”
“I know,” Phil replied, “Stupid, isn’t it? I tell them every meeting we have that they have to have spaces for disabled people who want to come into the pits on THIS SIDE of the track, but they just don’t listen.”
I was then directed to park my car in the Motorcycle Only Compound (just opposite where the pointy copse of trees pokes out towards the track), display my permit sticker and he’d sort it out if anybody asked why a car was parked there. So, each day I went in, I parked there and nobody said a word.
But that wasn’t all. The press box is upstairs, as I already said. There are NO toilets on the upper level, so any comfort stops require a trip down the stairs and back up again. I still struggle with stairs but I made it OK. Spare a thought for Australia’s premier motorcycle journalist, Don Cox, who is now suffering from the advancing effects of Multiple Sclerosis and requires either a wheelchair or two walking sticks to get around.
Not very well thought out? That ain’t the half of it.