Ph blog: Politeness costs nothing...

[The _Don]

PistonHeads Headlines - PH Blog: Politeness costs nothing...

 

[renault12ts]

I have done this (given a ticket to someone) and had it done to me...so mean of a council to try to stop it. It probably accounts for a few tens of pounds revenue...but I assume the machines are more expensive to purchase.

 

[moonloops]

I often hand over tickets and tell them there's an hour left when in fact they have expired.

 

[renault12ts]

I often hand over tickets and tell them there's an hour left when in fact they have expired.

That would work so long as they can't rad the small print.

 

[This is Pete]

True. There's something very cockle-warming in giving a ticket to someone else.

 

[Beno]

True. There's something very cockle-warming in giving a ticket to someone else.

Totally agree i do it whenever possible as it makes me feel good as well as doing someone a favour. What goes around comes around!!!

 

[moonloops]

That would work so long as they can't rad the small print.

Some will not bother

 

[A-AvantGarde]

I often pass on my Pay & Display tickets to other people and others have done the same to us. I've even seen tickets (with some time left) left on the machine!

Anyway, back to the article, I've come across machines like that before where you have to type in the numerical part of your registration - one of my plates just has the number 1 so I've always found that odd typing 1 when the system was set to allow 3 numbers!

It seems a bit more pointless now as many cars will have a similar age related number (e.g. 58, or 06 etc) to other cars in the car park, unless the machines now ask for the text portion of the reg instead?

 

[Deleted member 37751]

"Car Park owners wring every last penny out of motorists shocker".

With these license plate measures they are, in effect, trying to charge twice for the same parking spot.

Someone should start a movement whereby if you've got 10 minutes left on your ticket, you leave some sort of marker with the ticket attached in the car park spot what you've paid for.

 

[This is Pete]

The two other things that annoy me about car parks:-

1) Odd payments like 70p for one hour and £1.20 for two hours
2) Cash only and no change given

There's been many times when I've had no small change on me and had to pay £1 for half an hour parking.

 

[brucemillar]

You see here is my point..

If I buy a ticket for an hour, I feel what I have bought is the right to retain that piece of ground (paid for by me )for that hour.

So.

If I am say, ten minutes over the hour? then the Council (or the owners) have the right to fine me for my overstay. I hate it, but I have to accept that it is common sense and possibly legal.

However. If I under use my allocated hour by ten minutes? I should be able to claim back a credit for use against future parking, or to be credited against any future penalties incurred for overstaying my time limit.

By not allowing this penalty/credit regime (risk & reward) I believe that Councils are acting unfairly (no surprise here then).

Oh and yes, I would happily hand over my remaining minutes on my piece of land to another person, as I believe it is my purchase to dispose of how I chose.

FYI: My good Lady worked for a local Council and would cringe at the parking enforcement team (who sat just behind her desk) as they quite openly discussed how they, their families, friends and any councilors who objected, would get their tickets lost in the big round floor standing filling cabinet.

 

[Deleted member 37751]

You see here is my point..

If I buy a ticket for an hour, I feel what I have bought is the right to retain that piece of ground (paid for by me )for that hour.

So.

If I am say, ten minutes over the hour? then the Council (or the owners) have the right to fine me for my overstay. I hate it, but I have to accept that it is common sense and possibly legal.

However. If I under use my allocated hour by ten minutes? I should be able to claim back a credit for use against future parking, or to be credited against any future penalties incurred for overstaying my time limit.

By not allowing this penalty/credit regime (risk & reward) I believe that Councils are acting unfairly (no surprise here then).

Oh and yes, I would happily hand over my remaining minutes on my piece of land to another person, as I believe it is my purchase to dispose of how I chose.

That's what I was trying to say, but you've put it more eloquently.

 

[snoop51]

Fortunately in Colchester they have a decent amount of car parks where you pay on exiting which is much fairer in my mind. Although if I do have to use pay and displays then I have always tried to pass on any unused time left on my ticket.

 

[st13phil]

Those sort of Pay & Display machines were installed in the District Council run carparks around my area a couple of years back.

Just over a year ago, the group of money-grabbing incompetents that pass for local government around here decided that they needed to raise more money from the motorist so they not only raised the parking charge rates, but also decided that Blue Badge Holders (who had previously parked for free) needed to be charged too. Trouble was, the infernal machines were set at a height that a standing person could operate which was too high for a wheelchair-bound Blue Badge Holder, so they proceded to lower all the machines so that they could be comfortably operated by said wheelchair-bound Blue Badge Holder. This, of course, had the totally predictable side effect that anyone of normal standing height now has to crouch, bent double, to see the display and buttons on the thing and operate it. Wonderful

Roll forward about three months after the implementation of this triumph of petty-minded stupidity, and as a result of significant campaign pressure by disabled groups, the same bunch of money-grabbing incompetents that set off this chain of events back-tracked and reinstated free parking for Blue Badge Holders. So, the net effect of all this is that they have spent several thousand pounds uprooting, shortening and reinstalling their ridiculous machines and achieved nothing other than making them more difficult to use. Another triumph

Personally, I'd like to chain a couple of the f***wits responsible for the whole debacle to one of the machines, naked, in the middle of winter, for a day so they can "enjoy" the sort of unpleasantness that standing in an interminable queue in howling wind and lashing rain while a succession of hapless individuals who just want to park their car crouch, bent double, struggle to enter their registration number with numb fingers so they can get a wretched ticket brings.

 

[MOCAŠ]

Westminster did away with pay-and-diplay machines and cash-collecting meters some years ago. They replaced them with the infernal "pay-by-phone" system, which means you have to pay for a call (or text) on top of your actual parking charge. For occasional visitors to the borough it must be an enormously frustrating process, having to type in the ID of the bay, the car's registration number, your payment card details, etc. And of course, there's no way of passing unused time to someone else.

 

[Remenham]

We have these machines in Oxford where the Council is anti-car to a degree verging on barmy. Especially when most of the lefty councillors are elected by the part of the city reliant on a car factory (Mini) as its largest employer

 

[NOMONEYBUTAMERC]

Westminster did away with pay-and-diplay machines and cash-collecting meters some years ago. They replaced them with the infernal "pay-by-phone" system, which means you have to pay for a call (or text) on top of your actual parking charge. For occasional visitors to the borough it must be an enormously frustrating process, having to type in the ID of the bay, the car's registration number, your payment card details, etc. And of course, there's no way of passing unused time to someone else.

I suppose they just got fed up with everybody using the gold coins that the streets are paved with . Dear old Londinium is now just old and dear!

 

[Harrythedog]

Do it all the time. I use to stick the ticket on the machine as many other people did but now the tightfisted council have stopped using the stick back tickets.

 

[wxmclk]

Westminster did away with pay-and-diplay machines and cash-collecting meters some years ago. They replaced them with the infernal "pay-by-phone" system, which means you have to pay for a call (or text) on top of your actual parking charge. For occasional visitors to the borough it must be an enormously frustrating process, having to type in the ID of the bay, the car's registration number, your payment card details, etc. And of course, there's no way of passing unused time to someone else.

Have heard of this and was I remember livid when this was introduced.

Typical sadly of the greedy, mercenary like attitude of London councils and so glad I get off relatively lightly living 'int North'.

 

[Dieselman]

Westminster did away with pay-and-diplay machines and cash-collecting meters some years ago. They replaced them with the infernal "pay-by-phone" system, which means you have to pay for a call (or text) on top of your actual parking charge. For occasional visitors to the borough it must be an enormously frustrating process, having to type in the ID of the bay, the car's registration number, your payment card details, etc. And of course, there's no way of passing unused time to someone else.

Course you can...just give them your credit card.