Parking spaces are woefully short in George Town. The present Planning Laws do not require commercial buildings to provide adequate parking spaces for their own employees let alone for the use of the public. It is welcome news now that all buildings will have to designate a certain number of public parking spaces and Government is going to introduce a wheel clamping ban in the new traffic act.

This is something North Side MLA Ezzard Miller has been advocating for a long time. He even brought a private members motion to the Legislative Assembly (L.A.) over 18 months ago to ban the practice of clamping vehicles.

The inhuman practice of clamping vehicles in the Cayman Islands Government Hospital car park has been especially troublesome. I have seen elderly people with walking difficulties come out of the hospital to find their car clamped because it has been parked outside the parking lines even though it had not caused an obstruction. The publisher of this newspaper, Joan Wilson, had her car clamped there when she could find nowhere to park except between two spaces on the angle to one another. She was blocking no one and was having an injection into her knee and walking with a crutch. It took half an hour to find the person in the administration office who dealt with clamping to pay the outrageous fine and a full hour – yes you are reading correctly – to find a person to unclamp her car. She told me, “I was fit to be tied!!”

She has since campaigned to stop clamping there and instead have an attendant to help visitors and patients to find places to park. You can be the judge whether she has been successful. Incidentally the clamping was not done by the hospital staff but an outside contractor.

The new traffic act is due to be presented before the L.A. in the next sitting that starts on the 16th November. The bill states:  “A person who – (a) operates as an agent for the clamping of vehicles in public places; or (b) clamps or tows away a vehicle in a public place, commits an offence.”

With clamping fees around $85 that is more than three times the cost of a parking fine, these clamping companies have profited greatly. They have clamped people for the most trivial offences. Some of the employees of these companies get paid per clamped vehicle.

Now they are getting clamped! Hurrah!!