SafeSpeed wrote:
In Germany, the car park attendant TRUSTED ME to have a good reason and waved me through with a smile.
Did he? Were you driving a hirecar or a UK registered one? In the case of the latter he might just have decided it was the easier option than trying to engage in a conversation with a foreigner. On the other hand, if he thought he was dealing with a fellow national, you appear to be asking why his UK equivalent can't act with similar discretion.
So, let me tell you another anecdote then, when I was acting as a carpark attendant myself.
Every year RAF Cosford runs an airshow, its the biggest event in the local area and is often a lockout because there simply isn't enough space to accomodate all the cars that want to park. I did carparking duties two years running, the cars were arranged in double rows in the standard format for such events.
We were warned that people would try to occupy a double row to themselves so that they could lay their picnic stuff out behind their car. We were to explain that there just wasn't enough room, our instructions were to fit as many vehicles in as possible and that a seperate picnic area was provided nearby.
After politely explaining this for the umpteenth time my patience with the selfish, bloody-minded British public hit an all time low. I had my name taken on more than one occaision by arrogant pricks who thought that, whilst the rule was fine on the whole, it
obviously should not apply to them. By the end, I was so sick of people having a go at me I'll admit I probably overlooked a couple of instances where I could have given the request a bit more thought but all the whingers had worn me out so the others suffered.
So, I'd wager a UK counterpart to your pleasant German carpark attendant (or someone carrying out any other such job) would have their aimiable demeanour ground down by having to routinely deal with ignorant people and his ability to sift out the genuine cases worthy of waiving the rules for, would be minimal if not zero.
We get the society we deserve Paul and we are over-run with selfish, ignorant piss-takers who try the patience of authority and make the whole system a pain in the butt for the everyone.
Now, if we could weed those out I'd be more open to the idea that we should trust people to get on with things as they see fit. But unfortunately, the more inches you give them, the more miles they take.