In defence of car guards

Doug Murray from Wilro Park writes —

Many years ago, a budding entrepreneur decided to create a business where certain people would “look after” your car for a tip.

But cars were still stolen, (some saying in collusion with car thieves). We used to get so irritated when the car guards walked us to right to our car, waiting for a tip, as if we were so dumb that we couldn’t remember where we parked, and with an e-Checkers-e plastic with two grocery items, that they thought we were too frail to carry even though we did the Comrades the week before.

But since then, two things changed…

Shoppers started to use their credit or debit card more and more which meant no loose change to pay these infernal “car guards”, so their monthly tips were slashed to almost nothing, and remember, most of these car guards have families and expenses and school fees like you and me!

Did you know that normally, the car guard has to pay up to R45 for his vest, which means that he has to get at least R 45 before he makes one rand, and his transport just get to a shopping centre and home could be up to R30 per day. So now, we’re up to R75 with no take home money.

You might not have noticed, but the “car guards”, are there in summer, winter, heat, freezing cold and public holidays.

Personally, I don’t see them as car guards, I see them as people who help me to reverse safely. There have been many situations where, if it were not for a car guard helping me to reverse safely, I would have knocked into a car driving past the back of my car, and aside from the hassle of not having a car because it is in the panel beaters for at least a week, I would probably have to pay at least R1500 insurance excess.

So for a R5 tip, you could probably save yourself transport hassles and probably around R 1 500. I don’t know about you guys, but in my book, it would be five bucks well spent. And by the way, I’m reliably informed that that although they don’t accept Master Cards, they do accept money notes.

And lastly, while they are helping you to reverse safely, at least they aren’t robbing your house. So give these guys a break, give them some paper money.