Dear ute drivers, we need to talk about your parking
Thursday, 9 July 2026
Virginia Fallon is a staff writer and columnist based in Wellington and was awarded Best Columnist at the 2026 New Zealand Media Awards.
OPINION: As my suburb’s self-elected parking inspector, life is busy, busy.
It’s important work, this public service. Almost every day I head down to the supermarket — more cat food, more paper towels — and on my way conduct a quick patrol of the car park.
Infringements, you will not be surprised to learn, are depressingly common.
There are the diagonal parkers, who treat lines as more suggestion than system, and the double-dippers who straddle two spaces. Why? Because stuff you is why.
Obviously folks who steal mobility spaces are the worst, though a special mention goes to those who abandon their trolley in a neighbouring park, presumably in the hope it will raise itself.
Read more:
And of course, the parent-park usurpers.
“That must have hurt!” I recently bellowed at a burly bloke on my way in to buy a broccoli.
Huh?” he said, and I pointed at his Harley, parked squarely across a space reserved for people with small children.
“Giving birth to that,” I yelled, fleeing the scene at a brisk but dignified pace, thrilled I'd managed to say something clever instead of just thinking it later.
Lately, though, it’s the ute drivers who have my full attention.
You know the ones. These are the folks who pull up, reverse in, park perfectly then ruin it at the last possible moment by leaving their towbar poking halfway across the walkway.
The walkway is, of course, how other people get to the supermarket. At my local it runs the length of the car park, a safe space between the lines of parking spaces.
Now, I appreciate that utes are large, because that’s their whole point. But if a vehicle cannot physically fit inside a standard parking space without colonising the walkway, then perhaps the issue is the vehicle.
People using wheelchairs or mobility scooters have to back up and try another route, as do parents pushing twin prams.
Even those of us lucky enough to be on our feet have to pick our way around a steel shin-height trip hazard.
And before anyone writes in, yes, they're probably allowed to overhang the walkway. That's not the point. Lots of inconsiderate things are perfectly legal.
You can stop dead at the top of an escalator. You can have your phone on speaker in a waiting room. You can leave exactly one square of toilet paper on the roll and nobody is going to arrest you.
Society doesn't function because every discourtesy has a law against it. It functions because most of us spend our days making tiny decisions that make life slightly easier for strangers.
We return our trolley. We don't leave unwanted frozen food in the bread display. We thank the checkout operator, even if it's only because they're pretending not to notice that this is the third day in a row we’ve bought broccoli.
And if all this sounds like a scolding, you should hear what I say about the ute drivers. Under my breath, that is.
But just as the lines tell us where our cars should go, courtesy tells us where they should end.
Perhaps I'm expecting too much. Perhaps, as an inspector, I've simply seen too much. Perhaps one day I'll retire from the force, hand in my imaginary badge and stop mentally issuing infringement notices.
Parking, perhaps, isn't really about cars at all. Maybe it's a tiny daily referendum on whether we think other people matter.
And if your ute is blocking the footpath because, well, that's everybody else's problem now, I think we both know how you voted.