Americans ‘get it”

It used to be that Americans were a singular group. Show us an ATM and we would ignore it.  "I want to see a real person."  Pump your own gas — never (Until it costs $.50 a gallon to have someone come out and spill gas all over your car)  Cell phones — ha — who needs ’em.

I think, however, that we have come of technology age, so to speak.

Case in point — Houston is installing P and D machines throughout the city.  They are going in with nary a hiccup, it seems. People are lining up to use them, and try as they may, the media can’t seem to find anyone who is having problems with the technology. Read about it here. There’s also the story about the eastern City (help me here Bobra) where the only person the reporter could find that had a problem with the new system was the reporter himself.

Now that may be because DPT, the Houston’s machine’s manufacturer, has done a good engineering job, and for all I can see they have, but I doubt its the real reason.

I think Americans who have grown up with the internet, computers, atms, and cell phones, are now beginning to park cars.  Technology is no longer frightening. Those of us "of a certain age" have folded and now can "text message" with the best of them. When I see sixty year old grand mothers sitting on a train or at the library with their ipods firmly planted in their ears, and lol (little old ladies) in walkers straining to reach the buttons on an ATM, I know that we in the parking industry have little to fear as technology moves forward.

The fear of technology has gone the way of the dodo. For those in our industry this is a good thing. For society as a whole — that’s another story.

JVH