People fascinated by strange reason why some car parks have an area blocked off

Motorists have been left fascinated after discovering why some car parks have a section blocked off to the public. 

Chances are that at some point in your life, you’ve been been driving through a car park, unable to find an empty space, when you’ve seen a space or two blocked off. 

It can be a pretty frustrating situation to find yourself in, right? 

While most people sigh and continue with their search, one man has decided to get to the bottom of it.

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A Reddit user explained why the car park was blocked off

A Reddit user has given insight into why one underground car park has a blocked-off section, and just like how traffic lights really work, it’s surprisingly interesting. 

In a post on the aptly-named ‘mildly interesting’ subreddit, one user shared a snap of a car park with one part sectioned off by traffic cones and chains, alongside the explanation: “Parking garage space blocked off because of MRI machine above”. 

The post, which was shared back in March this year, soon attracted plenty of attention from folks who were shocked by the revelation. 

“This is actually quite interesting. Though you’d think they’d make the blocking a more substantial permanent setup,” one person wrote. 

Some people offered further explanation

Another chimed in to give more details, explaining that the magnetic field of an MRI ‘falls off to really low levels quite quickly when you get farther away from the magnet’. 

They went on to say that while this means cars parked below would have zero issues, the presence of vehicle beneath the MRI could ‘change the shape of the magnetic field’ and cause potential problems with image quality. 

Someone else suggested that area may have been sectioned off for a different reason altogether. 

“It’s because they had to lift the main magnet through from the level below. MRI machines can’t really be tipped much at all and if I had to guess you have to go up a ramp to get to this level from street level,” they wrote. 

“So they had to cut through two levels to lift the machine up into the room. The room is shielded with giant copper sheets and the magnetic field drops off really quite quickly around the machine, so the cars aren’t a worry. The plywood is to prevent water or chunks of concrete that might fall off the replacement slab onto cars below.”