The Parking Lot Movie
 

PBS has a great video on their site, "The Parking Lot Movie".

To quote one of the attendants, "People are like so beholden to their cars. We just look at them like unnnh... Most of us ride bikes."

That's an interesting video! As explained in the movie, it's "insanely overeducated people in a service sector job." "The anthropologists are great, it's like, y'know, field work..."

I parked cars for a hotel and liked the job except for one thing. The lot was two and a half blocks away and the attendants were required to run back and forth to get the cars. We always got to drive at least one way but running that often was painful. I quit when my knees started aching. These guys in this documentary had a great job. I'd love to do that. That's how laid back I am in life.

If I worked at this lot I'd buy a spike strip to put across the exit. All the non-paying people would pay in a much bigger way and get arrested for theft. I'd also keep a camera around my neck to photograph the people who argued.

I wish the director would have gotten into environmentalism a bit. It would have fit in with the part when the giant SUV was being denied service. They didn't do that all the time. It would be funny if the lot always refused SUVs that were not full of people. Only the people with little cars would be allowed to park.

We watched the film on PBS last night and we liked it so much that we just ordered a copy of the DVD! (and we buy very few DVDs.....)

Yeah, well parking lots themselves are ecological disasters anyway. ;)

I enjoyed the film when it aired the other night. Most of the CPL attendants have gone on to be professors at universities all over the country.

One thing I missed--did anybody catch what city the Corner Parking Lot is in?

Charlottesville Virginia. The link will take you to a map.

Thanks. I wanted to see what message the gate had on it on the day Google Maps photographed it, but I couldn't find it.

awesome film

Charlottesville is awesome, I could care less about UVA, but it's a place you could go car-free.

Easy.

You would have to live / work in the City Proper but I always will.

We just got our DVD of this in the mail. It's even better the second time!!

It's not on PBS anymore. Does anyone know if this is available online? I don't want to order a DVD, I'm actually getting rid of as much of physical media as I can. I'd rather watch it on line or rent it, but Netflix doesn't have it either.

Apparently the link is gone. I looked through the "Independent Lens" series, but only clips of it remained. Sorry. :(

You can order through the film company my girl friend just ordered me a copy ill see where she got it, I haven't seen it yet but cant wait I have worked in parking garages since Nov.2001 and im assuming ive seen everything thats gonna be on the movie, but still cant wait:) It is funny the overeducated people i work with, i my self have two associate degrees mind you both are for mechanics, so i dont consider myself overeducated but my buddy who just quit last month worked with me for six years here has a masters in lit. Seeing the people on a daily basis freak out over paying to park a car really enforces my carfreeness (is that a word)

The iTunes store has it to buy or rent.

Thanks :)

Agreed.

Except we have a Volvo wagon. Wouldn't want to look like a tourist, you know.

Now I'm _really_ sad I can't see the link.

My favorite C'ville parking lot story is the couple who drove into the parking lot of the Bluegrass Grill only to find it closed. They decided to check the restaurant across the street, a two-lane side street, so they got back in their car and...you can guess the rest.

Besides being just plain lazy, those short distance jaunts in a Car in stop & Go city driving is also the single most damaging thing you can do to your motor because it never gets a chance to really get up to a good operating Temp to burn all the crappy combustion byproducts(moisture,carbon ect) out of the engine. People prematurely age their motor by 1000s of miles just by this act alone. A while back, I read a book written by this Mechanical Engineer and he went into great detail on this matter alone. The title of his book was "How to drive your car a million miles or more" (if one is so inclined) as he beieved that with the current generation of car engines they truly can deliver a million miles or more, if properly serviced and driven. Furthermore , he went on to explain that 85% of the Car's Motor's wear was on startup due to cold starts and NO OIL in the Upper engine Area so lots of wear& tear on the Pistons & Cyclinder walls. A friend has an 1989 Volvo 240 she bought used in 2000 with 125,000 miles on the speedo and today, she has 489,000 miles on it--all on the original motor and tranny. Sorry for the rant as this is about bicycling but it drives me insane when I see my 2 neighbors driving to their Jobs when its less then 6 blocks distance and this is the worst damage they can inflict on their car's engine. They could bicycle in under 5 minutes, walk in 10-12 minutes. Crazy

This Engineer furthermore went on say that 85% of a car's motorwear occurs on cold starts compared to only 15% of total wear that happens after the engine has really warmed up to efficient operating temps as on long distance non stop thruway driving. That's why those Big Rigs can easily rack up at least 500,000 or more miles on their diesel motors. These short distance car drivers are insane in more ways then one.

Just because something is a proven fact doesn't mean people will buy into it. Look at smoking as an example...

FWIW I avoid short trips in my vehicles. I drove one F150 over 325,000 miles before it was swapped out by my company, but 95% of that was highway mileage, which is very easy on an engine.

Aaron :)

Watched it last week, and i really wish my company was ran this way, our company sadly likes to stay on the "customer is always right" bandwagon and really in the parking industry that is sooooooo very inaccurate.

I, too, finally got around to watching it on iTunes. Wow. It was better than I expected but it basically confirmed what I knew all along about people and cars... The characters were incredible. Some reminded me of the grad students and postdocs I met. And the rap at the end was freaking hysterical. I think I'll watch again, there are some good quotes there to be written down.