He calls it “instant karma”
Bruce Kerr has a unique way of punishing people who illegally park on his business’s driveway.
The 58-year-old owner of Kerr Solutions IT, in Rockhampton, Queensland, has rigged a sprinkler system to automatically blast drivers with water when they park in the driveway -footage of which is watched by millions on his viral ‘Rockhampton Chaos’ TikTok page.
“When the sprinkler comes on and smacks them in the face, you’re just thinking, well that’s justice, that’s karma being served,” Kerr told news.com.au.
But when he first began posting footage of drivers getting soaked online, he never imagined just how popular it would become, nor that it would lead to a worker losing his job.
Like many others before him, the worker had parked on the driveway belonging to Kerr Solutions IT to visit the tobacconist next door on a December weekday last year.
According to Kerr, the worker had told his boss he was at work on a mining site at the time.
Camera footage shows the worker pulling up into the driveway and stepping out of the company truck wearing a pair of shorts and no shirt.
Just moments after opening the ute door, he was met with a jet of water, sending him quickly scurrying back inside the car.
Kerr shared the video on TikTok for four and a half million people, including the worker’s boss, to see.
“He was claiming on his time sheets that he was out west working, when in fact he was in town buying smokes and because the time date stamp on the cameras and because it went viral on TikTok, his boss got to see that he was actually in Rockhampton,” said Kerr.
Kerr said the boss later reached out to him to apologize on his worker’s behalf and tell him he had fired him.
“He wanted to apologize for his employee’s performance or, uh, lack of performance, I guess you’d say,” he joked.
“He said that he had already been let go because he received a few other calls about his bad driving … and decided that even though apparently he was a good worker, he was dishonest and he just wasn’t keeping up a good image for the company.”
It’s just one of the many memorable moments that have been captured on video since Kerr installed the sprinkler system two years ago.
‘Sick of it’
The 58-year-old came up with the idea after a tobacconist moved into the store next door along busy Musgrave Street.
Before long, up to 20 people per day would park on his driveway, blocking Kerr’s staff from accessing his car park, despite clear signs informing them not to park in the area.
“These Muppets think the world revolves around them and they just decided to park there any old time, even though there are signs up saying do not park there,” he said.
“And often because they’re smokers, they often have their windows down and they just walk off from their car to go spend their five minutes at the smoke shop. I just got absolutely sick of it.”
Kerr – whose business has been servicing Rockhampton for 29 years and had been at its current location for the last decade – said there would be plenty of kerbside parks available on Musgrave Street but customers would still choose to park on his driveway.
“There’s also plenty available further down the street, but they don’t want to walk 50 to 80 metres. They want to park 10 metres away from the stall front they’re going to, which means parking in our driveway.”
On top of the headache to Kerr and his staff, drivers were creating a danger to themselves and others when they reversed out onto Musgrave Street, he explained.
“We’ve had plenty of tyre screechers, plenty of horns and beeping and everything.
“It’s a wonder that someone hasn’t been wiped out.”
But when Kerr tried to take the issue to the council or send license plate numbers and video footage to police, he said the issue “fell through the cracks” as it was outside either jurisdiction.
“It’s not a council road, it’s actually a main road … and the police also say that it’s a main road and comes under federal jurisdiction.
“It’s not like the feds are going to drive up from Brisbane to start handing out tickets or what have you for people parking there.”
Fed up, Kerr, – who studied mechanical engineering and business marketing at university, and spent 30 years living on a farm – drew on his unique expertise to craft an automatic sprinkler system with his staff.
“It was in the planning (stage) for probably six months before it eventuated because I wanted to check on the legalities of it … we wanted to know the best way to control it and whether it (should be) totally automatic or have a manual override.”
Using piping, sensors, cameras, and a connection to the town’s water supply, they created the system which has gone viral today.
“We’re storing the water in a pressure vessel that has a 400L capacity at a very high pressure because of a multistage pump, and then we’ve got a whole heap of solenoids and different jets and valves,” he explained.
When a person or vehicle triggers the motion sensors, they are automatically sprayed with a jet of water.
“If a driver happens to have the windows down, it’s probably going to put a lot of water through that opening very quickly.”
Since its installation in late 2023, the sprinkler system has been a success, with only two or three cars parking in the driveway and getting blasted with water per day.
Some of them get shared on Kerr’s TikTok page. And people are loving it.
“Some people on TikTok are saying ‘I live for these movies’ and ‘this is the best thing on TikTok’ and now ‘that I found this it’s the only thing I watch’ and ‘when can you put on more movies’ and we want more’,” said Kerr.
Kerr said most people who get sprayed react positively, given the circumstances.
“Some people who get hit with the water have a laugh and they know that they’ve been Muppets and they shouldn’t have parked there in the first place.”
But not everyone is as good-humoured about it.
One person vandalized the system and tried to pull it off the wall, before eventually being tracked down by police and fined. Others have thrown rocks or come in to verbally abuse staff.
For those who do want to come into the store to “carry on like pork chops”, Kerr has a solution for that too.
“We’ve got the horn of Gondor,” he explained, a reference to a powerful horn in The Lord of the Rings.
“We’ll give them a blast of that. It’s that loud that it usually disorients them and they forget what they even came here for,” he added, joking his business can “fix a lot of problems.”
‘Disgusting’ problem
Aside from illegal parkers, there’s another issue he and his team are working to solve – members of the public are urinating in the driveway’s alcove in broad daylight.
“Along Musgrave Street here in North Rocky, all the shop fronts are built out to the same level, but this is a little alcove that you can walk into that’s back from the shop front, so a lot of people think it’s just a great place to relieve themselves, which is just disgusting.”
Kerr said he and his team are working on an upgrade to the system to address the problem but he did not wish to divulge details just yet.
He did reassure fans, however, that there would be videos on TikTok when the upgrade is in place.
In the meantime, the sprinkler system continues to amass attention both online and offline, becoming a sort of tourist attraction for the community.
“There’s a lot of local kids who challenge it with their scooter or their push bike and try and dart in and have fun with it … So we hit the manual (override) and give it a squirt and they just squeal and everyone laughs and they just think it’s probably the best fun in the world.”
“There will be tourists that turn up and take photos of it on the way past as well … It’s become quite a fun thing.”
Kerr even has people from all over the country and in the US reach out to him for advice on how to install a sprinkler system for their own businesses to address similar issues.
“There’s a guy who rang me the other day from down in Melbourne because they’ve got a similar problem at a storage facility down there and they wanted to know how to put it all together.”
“I need to start selling plans to the system because there seems to be quite a need for it in other areas.”
For now, if drivers continue to park in the driveway, Kerr has a simple message:
“Come park here and cop a squirt, if that’s what they want to do. We’ve got the solution to their problem,” he said with a laugh.
Read the full article here
