China's women-only parking bays
Would you believe us if we told you that there was an ancient Chinese proverb saying: “Never get between a woman and a parking space -- or the one beside it?” Okay, you got us, there isn't. But you might just believe it after recent headlines about China’s first women-only parking bays.
Following in Korea’s footsteps, the first Chinese parking spots for women are set to open in Shijiazhuang, Hebei.
The benefits to the fairer sex? AFP reports that mall parking lots have wider spaces (three meters verses the standard two meter space) to accommodate what Wang Zheng, an official at the Wanxiang Tiancheng shopping center, calls women’s “different sense of distance.”
In addition to wider spaces, Wang adds that the city’s malls also have "installed signs and security monitoring equipment that corresponded more to women's needs." The lots are also decorated in pink and light purple to ensure that women’s aesthetic tastes are also met. Phew.
According to the Global Times, the parking lots will be staffed by female parking attendants who have been trained to help other women park. You might think that using women, who it is claimed need help to park, to help other women park their cars is just asking for trouble. But maybe that's just us.
The new design is prompted, according to state-run media sources, by insurance company data that showed female drivers "tend to cause twice as many collisions in parking lots than in other places."
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