Don't drive out car washers

Steve Baron

Before being elected, former New York Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, campaigned on removing "squeegee men" from the streets of New York. He claimed they were creating an environment of disorder and demanded police arrest all of them.

In New Zealand, a documentary was filmed in 2006 called Squeegee Bandit and was about one particular car windscreen washer who went by the name of Starfish. Obviously, this issue has touched a nerve from time to time.

Call them squeegee men, squeegee bandits or perhaps even squeegeepreneurs - you decide - but are they becoming an issue in Wanganui? You don't see too many car windscreen washers around town and they don't seem to be a real problem at this stage, but they are starting to have a presence on a regular basis at the Wanganui City Bridge intersection and also outside the council chambers in Guyton St.

Auckland has been struggling with this social phenomenon for quite some time, with police making appeals for the public not to pay the windscreen washers, to discourage them. New Plymouth recently had a high-profile incident, which was videoed by a city councillor, who witnessed an assault when a motorist was punched in the face by an aggressive 17-year-old windscreen washer. After the incident, a Taranaki Daily News online poll showed that 82 per cent of people who participated in the poll wanted the so-called squeegee bandits outlawed.

Technically, they already are. Anyone washing car windscreens at an intersection is in breach of existing road user rules, which prohibit people from loitering on the road, and therefore could be arrested. Fines of up to $1000 can also be issued for threatening behaviour, which is a criticism often laid at car windscreen washers who wash a windscreen when the driver does not want them to and then demand payment.

Some people have suggested councils should go down the licensing path and require people who perform this service to pay a fee so it can be better regulated. That would, however, appear to be rather extreme given that door-to-door canvassers who offer to clean our house windows or gutters are not subjected to such a requirement. Perhaps a little bit OTT, in my opinion.

Personally, I admire these young blokes who are prepared to get up off their backsides to make more money in a few hours than they could ever hope to make collecting the dole. Hell, they're a lot smarter than me; the only idea I could come up with as a kid was to be a paperboy delivering the Chronicle. I can tell you the Chronicle didn't give me $100 an hour, which some of these guys make on a good day! When chatting to a couple of them down by the City Bridge, one told me that one driver once gave him $50 for cleaning his windscreen.

These young men also seemed to take pride in doing something constructive to earn some extra money. One commented that it helped his self-confidence and self-esteem immensely. I got the feeling they felt like businessmen performing a service that was in demand by the public of Wanganui and for that I say good on them.

So, before it does become a real issue in Wanganui, let me just say that there will always be the occasional bad apple that causes a problem but let's look at the positive. We can admire their initiative and support these young men to continue what they do.

Steve Baron is a Wanganui-based political scientist, co-editor of the book People Power and the founder of Better Democracy NZ