Late yesterday afternoon, there was a mad dash from the newsroom as six or seven reporters raced to get their cars out of the "photographers' parking lot" on the west side of the Journal Building, after word spread that cars were to be towed.

Most of the reporters were trying to finish stories for today's Journal.

While they knew they were parking where they weren't welcome, the company's refusal to provide parking for many Guild members - and the continuing downtown parking shortage - had prompted them to take their chances.

Tempers were frayed, since some of the spaces they were using were those of Guild photographers, who also needed to get about their work.

Considerable time was lost, as reporters abandon their keyboards, sprinted from the building to hunt for new parking spaces.

The irony: most of the reporters said they had taken the parking shortcut because they were low on time and trying keep to their schedules during a period when overtime is frowned on. Instead, more time was wasted.

The other incident happened earlier this month when a reporter took "Car One," the company's only auto available to reporters, to an assignment to South County.

Car One normally is used by reporters covering Providence police, but this year, it has been pressed into extra service by city-based reporters who don't have their own cars available.

Some of this use has been linked to the Guild's protest over lack of parking. The union has advised reporters who aren't required by contract to run their cars on company business to take taxis or Car One or ask their editors to suggest other arrangements.

But on this day, while returning to Providence, Car One blew a front tire, with no sign of a cause, such as road debris.

Luckily, the reporter was able to get the red Jeep safely to the shoulder. When a tow truck arrived, the operator looked over the car's spare tire with an eye to changing the damaged tire; but he pronounced the spare unfit and towed the car.

Was the tow operator being overly pessimistic about the spare, so he could turn a tire-changing run into a full-scale tow job? Perhaps. But it's also possible that the Jeep was equipped with not just the problem tire that failed, but that the spare was potentially just as dangerous.

And newsroom reporters know from experience that the aging Jeep may be called Car One, but that it's upkeep has not always seemed to be Job One for a management that has shown disregard as to whether - and how - reporters get to their assignments.

The two incidents are the latest in a dispute about the company's parking and car-use policies, which the newspaper has long used as a leverage point in its negotiations with the Guild.

Last year, as negotiations for a still unresolved new contract become tense, the company cut back on subsidized parking in its own lots and garage in part of an attempt to punish the Guild and its members.

And while the company took away benefits like a paid holiday and vacation time, it refused to make its so-called "free parking" proposal available to Guild members (except those who are required by contract to use their personal vehicles).

The result has been frustrating for Guild members, who must either dig into their own pockets for parking costs, or play the kind of roulette with city meter maids or towing scares that emptied reporters' chairs yesterday.

The Guild's advice for workers caught in the dilemma is this:

If you don't get a monthly car allowance, you aren't required to use your cars for company business. It's the company's job to get you to your assignments and back.

So take a taxi. Take a bus. Take the train.

But if you take Car One, check the tires.