Monday, January 18, 2010

Why Skippy loves Asia


No further comment is required on my part, because if I did - Maggie and Mary might hurt me.
A shopping centre in China's Hebei province has built a car park with wider spaces that it says is designed especially to suit women drivers.
The women-only car park in Shijiazhuang city is also painted in pink and light purple to appeal to female tastes.
Official Wang Zheng told AFP news agency the car park was meant to cater to women's "strong sense of colour and different sense of distance".

The
parking bays are one metre (3ft) wider than normal spaces, he said.

The Wanxiang-Tiancheng shopping centre had also "installed signs and security monitoring equipment that corresponded more to women's needs", he said.

The Global Times website says f
emale parking attendants have been trained to help guide women drivers into their parking spaces. The bays also have extra lighting.

Driving in China is a dangerous activity, with more than 200 deaths in road accidents each day last year, AFP reports, citing police statistics.

15 comments:

SCOTTtheBADGER said...

With your fear of Maggie and Mary, doesn't this post fit under the heading of Doing the Polka in a Proximity Minefield?

Grumpy Old Ham said...

It's not just the Chinese:

http://autos.aol.com/article/men-women-parking

virgil xenophon said...

The Chinese are nothing if not gimlet-eyed realists....   :)

Kristen said...

Sign me up.  I can't parallel park and I regularly call on my husband to back the car out of the driveway if it looks tight to me.  This is the first thing since lemon chicken to come out of China that sound like a good idea.  :)

MaryR said...

Ha!

BostonMaggie said...

Hey!  That's awesome.  I can parallel park being from the inner city, but loads of people can't...this would keep those people away from my car.  I hate when I park in a spot, go in the store and return to my car to find some SUV snugged up against my door.  The other day at the supermarket I was contemplately climbing in through the passanger side, when the other driver returned.

MaryR said...

Driving in China is a dangerous activity, with more than 200 deaths in road accidents each day last year, AFP reports, citing police statistics

Exactly. No one can drive there.

xbradtc said...

Can't wait till the Diversity Bullies find out the Chinese are treating women different from men. They'll send a strongly worded letter, followed by hours and hours of mandatory sensitivity training.

But no training on parking

cdrsalamander said...

Kristin!  Glad to see you back in comments.

Maggie, "...t<span>he other day at the supermarket I was contemplately climbing in through the passanger side,<span>" </span></span>

---- The only thing better than the visual of that happening would be the string of French sounding words that would be heard echoing around the parking area ... :)

surfcaster said...

But Asian women are the best when it comes to  Driving By Brail. Maybe Maggie can back this up  but in years living in Boston (with an elevated Asian Female driver ratio) + years running automotive service, they had by far the highest "incident" rate.  Some had accidents within hours of leaving the showroom. Most were also recent immigrants/students so perhaps the most at risk group is "Asian Female Immigrant MIT Student", followed by "Asian Female Immigrant Medical Practioner", at least in my experience. The American of Asian descent did not seem to have the same accident rate. Anecdotal but it was based on my experience.

UltimaRatioRegis said...

Sal, let me speculate:

"AAHHH!  Lookit this, ya bastid!  Ya don't even know howta paaahk ya damn caaah!  Go back westa 128 wheah ya belong!"

Skippy-san said...

You guys are forgetting the most important thing: What are these girls wearing while they do it. Boots, short skirt and a schoolgirl blouse would work just fine thank you very much.

And yes: Reason #1 I like Asia is THE WOMEN!

Skippy-san said...

Which is why they are building 90,000 miles of railroad track in the next ten years-most of it high speed.

Kristen said...

CDR, was away for the holidays visiting family, and back to LA just in time for torrential rain.  I won't complain though - at least it's not going to snow.

Maggie, I swear it wasn't me.  I HATE it when people do that in parking lots.  I actually did have to climb over the center console once cause the driver door was completely blocked.  Since I was wearing a skirt at the time, it required some careful negotiation and some mumbled naughty words.  Glad you didn't have to do the same.

More importantly, looks like you're going to do it for us!  I"m going to be glued to the news all day tomorrow, holding my breath, crossing my fingers and praying fervently.  Go Scott!

Therapist1 said...

This was priceless: <span>"strong sense of colour and different sense of distance"<span>.</span></span>