Sir – Like cycling and traffic one of the perennial letters page discussions is parking. The usual points of throttling local trade or being a rip-off have been well discussed.

Oxford parkers may remember a fashion for leaving tickets with time left stuck to the ticket machine, so someone else could use it.

Whilst probably illegal this small act of kindness has been carefully eliminated by a new(ish) breed of ticket machine. These have tiny buttons which force you to stoop to press them. Counter-intuitively used to input your licence plate number before paying. The machines don’t give change.

In a world of streamlined function and a focus on user satisfaction this device can only have been devised by someone who truly hates their customers.

When squinting and jabbing at one the other a day a woman asked me if I had change for 20p. I said I only had 10p left. We made the exchange anyway as she said ‘I’d rather you had it than them’.

It’s nice to know that these small moments of human kindness can still exist in the man-made hell that is parking in Oxford.

Chris Shipton, Headington