You know what’s worse than someone taking your parking space at the mall? When they take your space and block your driveway at your own home or business. One Australian has apparently solved this tricky problem in a delightfully watery way.
As covered by 9Now, the system is the creation of Rockhampton local Bruce Kerr. Kerr operates an IT business in the town, and has long suffered with customers of neighboring businesses intruding on his driveway. Signs did little to deter this bad behavior.
Kerr’s solution was to install a sprinkler system, giving offending parkers the soaking of their life. “Block the gate, meet your fate,” said Kerr.
It’s a neat way to manage problem parkers. It doesn’t do any damage, but it makes it more than clear to the offenders that they’re not supposed to be blocking this drive.
The system is not automated. Instead, Kerr keeps a close eye on the driveway via surveillance cameras and triggers it manually to soak offending drivers. “From all the cameras we’ve got, we’re pretty quickly alerted when someone’s parked there and so we flick a switch,” Kerr explained to 9Now. “We don’t even have to actually leave our desks to do that.”
Responses from the public have been aggressive, at times. Footage captured by Kerr includes soakees flipping the bird, ripping off the parking signs, or trying to tear down the sprinkler itself.
It would actually be trivial to automate the system if so desired. A cheap single-board computer like the Raspberry Pi can run image recognition algorithms quite easily, identifying humans and vehicles where they’re not supposed to be. Hook one of these up to a solenoid valve in line with the sprinkler, and you’ve got a set-and-forget driveway defense system.
However, there is a caveat to automation. It would be relatively trivial to cause trouble by simply triggering the system and standing there indefinitely. Or, if you don’t like getting wet, a convincing mannikin could stand in for you. This would cause excess water use, costing the owner money, and potentially even turn the driveway into a mudbath. Indeed, in video shared on Tiktok by Rockhampton Chaos, one cheeky local took advantage of the sprayer to cool off during recent hot weather.
@rockhamptonchaos One of Rockhampton’s biggest attractions ????
@rockhamptonchaos “Why don’t you report it to the council?”… The local council ????
Kerr’s solution might seem over the top, but the way he tells it, he was left with little other option. “The council can’t do anything, we tried sending number plates to police and what not, that didn’t seem to have any effect,” he told A Current Affair. “That’s when we started the water works.” Indeed, there’s even a video of a police vehicle blocking the driveway and getting a hosedown. For now, the sprinkler just runs on mains water pressure. However, Kerr has plans to go further. “With the multi-stage centrifugal [pump], we’re gonna crank that up to 55 to 58 psi.”
Of course, one might question whether Kerr’s sprinkler system is actually achieving its intended goal. It does seem to encourage people to leave the driveway rather than blocking it in some cases. However, overall, the sheer number of videos online suggest that the cars keep coming, water or no.
@rockhamptonchaos “Why don’t you report it to the police?” The police ????????
♬ GTA San Andreas Theme (Remake) – Ben Morfitt (SquidPhysics)
Ultimately, though, those blocking Kerr’s driveway will likely find little sympathy for their misdeeds, no matter how wet they get. Karma is often most appreciated when it’s instant and righteous.
Image credits: David Aaron via YouTube screenshot
This is why the Internet was created. This and 11’8’+8 Bridge.
And Cat videos
I witnessed a person at Sunapee mountain ski area in NH remove a handicapped parking sign that was standing in a 5 gallon bucket, toss it in the snow on the ground, move the bucket and park in the space.
Where is that goddam sleazy californian towing company? this would be a continuous source of income for them
A business owner in Deep Ellum neighbourhood of Dallas, Texas has same problem with lot of people parking on his car park despite numerous signage. He uploaded many videos of vehicles getting towed away quickly to his YouTube channel. They’re quite informative and funny…
I understand that when you can’t read a sign, you also can’t fathom the concept of parking backing in 🙂
Would put the driver on the dry side.
The guy needs better ‘DRIVEWAY – NO PARKING’ signage. He needs to put the sign on the fence right in front of where people are always parking.
I used my sprinkler system on a neighbor who regularly let their dogs do their business on my lawn.
Pick it up with a shovel and drop it on their porch.
That would be considered an act of vandalism regardless where the poop originated…
“Considered”, maybe. Under the law, vandalism is the act of damaging real or personal property. Dropping their dog’s droppings on their porch damages nothing, but sends a message to the inconsiderate dog owner. No cop would ever arrest someone for this, and no decent DA would ever file a vandalism charge based on the facts. No jury would convict, either.
Of course, the withered and/or yellowed grasses from the poop or dog urine aren’t considered “damage”. Of course, stepping on the poop isn’t considered “health risk”. Of course, leaving the poop on the front porch isn’t considered “littering”. Of course, failing to scoop the poop off the ground isn’t considered “environmental hazard”.
You don’t need to go through the judicial process with district attorney and jury to penalise the offender on basis of leaving the dog poop. The city government can simply fine the person for doing so…
https://legalclarity.org/is-it-illegal-to-leave-dog-poop-in-someones-yard/
Can confirm. Had a neighbor send his dog to my yard every morning. I asked him to stop, he told me two words that do not resemble “happy birthday” in any way, that it was not his dog, though I had watched him do this very thing.
So, I collected it while the dog was dumping, and brought it to his porch and deposited it while he was in his robe with no shoes. And told him I would do so until he stopped this behavior.
Never happened again, as he wouldn’t even come out of his house to address it despite the stream of loud profanity.
The county sheriff did visit and told me not to escalate, but also not to worry – he was on board with it as long as I didn’t push beyond that.
About 60% of my American neighbors reading this thinking: “Pretty sure you could just replace the sprinkler with an AR15”
Soon to be legal in Texas
Hey maybe if the operator feel threatened.. he can “stand his ground”
Yes, let’s mock human rights.
Why not conserve water and use “gray” water instead?
Or bleach water. Eff ’em.
Not only are these douches parking in someone else’s driveway, they’re also at least partly blocking the sidewalk. So entitled.
This reminds me of the YouTube channel GTOger, which pre-pandemic worked at a place in Texas with a private parking lot with about a dozen signs that people kept ignoring. He made fun edits of people parking, walking away, a tow grabbing the car in about twenty seconds, then the people coming back bewildered to the empty spot.
I’ve turned on the sprinklers when cars parked in front of my house with 2 tires on my lawn.
And they got a free car wash…
Amusing though I do feel like his no parking sign is pretty small. If he really wants to reduce the number of muppets parking there he should install a full width “No Parking Tow Away Zone” sign right across the gate.
Just get an ibc container hook it to the gutter for rain catchment then use a jet pump. Free sketchy water to spray at people.
In the words of Dave Grohl, “There goes my hero.”