Tweet of the Day: Illegal Parking Hampers Fire Response in South Korea

“This is one tragedy you can squarely blame both authorities AND citizens”

Bullshít.

This one is squarely on the authorities.

It is their job to solve these problems before they have problematic results.

Instead, authorities have randomly chiseled away at availble parking, closing spots that should be closed for safety… but also closing perfectly good spots for seemingly no reason… and not creating new spots due to wider sidewalks and bike paths in places there are relatively few pedestrians and where bikes should never be.

But the need to park still remains.

The solution becomes illegal parking… and, to the citizen robbed of parking spots and not an expert on fire safety, all illegal parking spots are valid and equal.

Occasionally, authorities need some revenue and there is a crackdown. So everybody has to pay some tens of thousands of won.

But the need to park still remains.

So authorities cannot enforce this too much or the citizens will revolt and they will have to do something for real.

But as it sits, authorities have shown on paper that they have safe, controlled parking. The citizens have enough parking for enough time they don’t cause a stink. The authorities generate extra revenue without pushing citizens into revolt.

This is a bureaucratic dream.

So there will be a crackdown for a month… and Korea will be angry and dysfunctional… and extra money will be made… and politicians will claim to be “doing something”… and then it will return to normal.

Because the need to park still remains.

Parking is one thing; but blocking fire exits and turning of sprinklers ought to make the building owners negligent enought to be guilty of at least manslaughtet, if not second degree murder.