We decided to park our car in the most ridiculous way on the Ipswich Waterfront today to learn more about how people would respond to really bad parking. In order to get the effect we wanted we used our own car, parked if really badly and but one of the “STUPID PARKING” leaflets under the windscreen wipers front and rear. We then took a seat outside a coffee shop and waited. We wanted to find out:
- How many people will pass?
- How many people will walk round the car without noticing anything odd?
- How many people will show signs of irritation?
- How many will notice the ‘STUPID PARKING’ sticker
- How many will stop and talk to us about it.
Our awful parking was totally ignored by about half the people to passed, another 20% noticed something odd and glanced at the leaflet, and the rest were clearly irritated. Two parents with buggies were badly affected and had a great struggle getting by the car and then chatted with us. In order to get a real reaction from the passers by we didn’t immediately confess to the car being ours.
The most amazing reaction to us was when a pedestrian had no reaction at all, those who it seemed to not bother. Does this mean that it happens so much that people have gotten used to it? or do people just not realize that they have the write to act against it.
The free-runners
Whilst filming the car we noticed two guys free-running just a short way away and we thought what a brilliant idea it would be to get them involved, so we invited them over to help and they were more than happy to do so. The videos and pictures below show how we got on.
We came to the conclusion that this spot is used frequently by pedestrians and in the hour we spent filming there it proved to be very successful and we got some great results so this will be definitely be a place to return to in the future.
Pedestrian Liberation 
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