The Bridge Club Carpark - take care

The continuing saga of the Bridge Club Carpark
 
Take care of yourself, lookout for others and your property
 
Recently a car belonging to a Plunket staff member was interfered with to the point where it was not capable of being driven - broken window and damaged wiring. We only found out about the problem when Plunket asked whether the Bridge Club cameras in the carpark had recorded the incident.
When the recording was viewed it was a surprise to see how long the culprit was in the carpark and their attitude to those who transited the area while they were present. The culprit had no observed contact with anybody while in the carpark.
 
If you have concerns about your own or others personal safety or property when in the carpark do nothing that impacts upon your safety and promptly vacate the area. Contact whoever is running the session / event, a member of the Club's committee or staff and advise them of your concerns.

 
 
 
Reviewing the recording, while it is unlikely to identify the the actual offender, does show the incident unfolding and how unconcerned they were about other happenings in the carpark.
The incident happened over around 30 minutes shortly after 9am and shows the perpetrator arriving on foot, casually wandering amongst cars ( at this time cars belonging to Plunket staff ), and when disturbed by new cars arriving simply re-locating to a less visible location, leaving the carpark for a few minutes or standing while appearing to hold a conversation on their phone or visibly sitting on the road fence of the carpark also on the phone. No-one appeared to take any notice !
The carpark by then was beginning to fill rapidly with the cars of those attending events in our building which didn't deter the culprit ! At some point the "unfortunate car" was broken into with the culprit sitting in the car for a reasonable period attempting to start the car with the intention of removing the car and themself from our property.

 
Additionally don't raise the odds of your car being chosen for a damaging experience by leaving "interesting or desirable items" in plain view or if your car is of an age or design not to have an immobilisation system installed consider installing a manual steering lock.

To explain a little more why the cameras were not able to identify the culprit. When the camera installation was designed the issue facing the club were trucks using the carpark for turning around and other vehicles accessing the back carpark for "less understood" reasons. Since then we have discovered other cameras would be a useful addition for a number of reasons - the "baddies" don't necessarily drive where the club and camera placing intended them to drive; vans and utes block the view of cars and licence plate numbers of cars located behind them and the angle of parked cars generates access lanes at right angles to the cameras view. This of course could be improved on with both time and money which is a subject the committee will need to consider !

Cars and the Carpark are not a new problem - more than 20 years ago the Committee minutes have the same issues documented
 
Please, If you have concerns about your own or others personal safety or property when in the carpark do nothing that impacts upon your safety and promptly vacate the area.
 
Hamilton Bridge Committee

P.S. A couple of small requests from Richard W who looks after the car parking at the club

• Traffic flow thru the front carpark and around the building is CLOCKWISE to minimise accidents
• The chains and cones at the entrance \ exit to the carpark are to frustrate visitors using the carpark after hours
• Please do not reverse into the carpark slots - the angle of the slots together with the narrow spacing between rows produces more incidents than it solves !
• The Indian owned building next door to the club has been renovated with a larger building capacity. Parking next door has not caught up with the new numbers so in the meantime we may have a little congestion at times