Okay, so I don’t live on my phone.  I use it rarely.  I don’t text.  I don’t watch videos on my phone.  I don’t use it for listening to music.  One place, however, that I’m more or less forced to use it is travel.  Parking is one of the biggest offenders.  I was okay with ParkMobile.  I downloaded the app and began to use it.  It seemed that everywhere around the Lehigh Valley had agreed that this app was pretty nifty and that was the way to go.  Then other apps began to compete.  I had a presentation at the Easton Book Festival back in October.  At a meeting of local writers, I learned that one of the two parking garages in Easton had switched to Park Smarter.  So I downloaded the app so that I could park and do my presentation.  So downloading and registering for a new app.

Then I had to travel for business.  This involved crossing state lines and parking.  The parking garage in which I was to park had changed its “how to park and pay” website just about a week before I left.  I went to the new page and found out that they now use NexPass for parking.  Another app to download.  Another registration to fill out.  I hoped I’d be able to login once I got there.  Even with the familiar—and in my mind original—ParkMobile, that’d sometimes be a problem.  I’d get to the parking lot and my phone seemed to forget how to login.  It asked for my password, which was obscure and unique and forgotten, written down somewhere at home.  So I sat in my car, with an unreliable two bars, and reset my password, which involved checking my email and entering an authentication code they’d texted me.  All to park for an hour.

I’m glad not to have to walk around with a pocket full of change all the time, but all this tech only opens the door for scammers.  Already some of them use stickers that they place over legit QR codes on parking signs.  You scan the false code, enter your credit card number and voila!  You’ve been scammed!  Doesn’t it seem better to have one system that we all agree to use?  Or maybe at most, two?  Whose signs are regularly checked and maintained.  I know that there was a fourth parking app at one time because I had to use one whose name I can’t remember, once upon a time.  For those of us who don’t live on our phones, maybe they should reserve an exit lane for those paying with dimes.