Final Word from Thursday, February 19, 2004
An expert on parking machines informed us that it actually is cheaper to have expensive self-service machines at the airport and other locations than human beings, but not for the reason you might think. Wages play a role in the overall calculation, he said, but the main reason for replacing humans with a machine is the difficulty of preventing theft by parking attendants. The more hands that are involved in the transactions, the more likely it is that some of the money will stick to them. At Prague airport, humans are completely eliminated from the process (except for the ones who have to fix the broken machines). The problem of theft at parking lots isn't by any means limited to the CR, our expert said. Lot owners all over the world address the problem by installing machines. But it is true, he said, that Czechs are particularly good at figuring out ways to steal.