The Ten Craziest Parking Tickets of All Time

Think that you’ve been hard done to by the parking authorities? Well, wait until you have read these extraordinary tales…

1. Trucking ridiculous

It was a normal day for truck driver Michael Collins, who was on his way to collect a skip in London’s Belsize Park. But then, without warning, his truck lurched as the road beneath him collapsed. Unbeknown to Michael, a burst water main had caused the road to give way, creating a deep hole where the front wheels of his 17-tonne truck became stuck.

While he was waiting for his lorry to be rescued, a passing parking attendant appeared. To the astonishment of nearby residents and despite Michael’s protests, she stood on tiptoe and whacked a parking ticket on the trucks windscreen, uttering the immortal words, “You can appeal”. (See picture above).

2. Bad news comes in trees

If a tree fell on your car and you escaped death by mere inches, you might think that you would get some sympathy from your local council. Sadly, no such compassion was forthcoming when one family suffered just such a fate under the parking Taliban of Wychavon District Council

Nicky Clegg from Stoulton, near Pershore, was driving along the Bromwich Road with her 82-year-old mother and her 11-year-old son when without warning a tree crashed on her car. Miraculously they escaped death but the car ended up with a crushed bonnet, smashed windscreen and broken wing mirrors.

Police dragged the wrecked car to the side of the road and told Nicky that it was fine to leave it there and she could pick it up the following day. But when Nicky came back the next day, she was astonished to find a parking ticket on the window.

3. Feeling run down?

Think that being badly injured is an excuse to park illegally? Think again. When Nadhim Zahawi of South London was thrown from his scooter and left lying in the road with a broken leg, a heartless warden from Lambeth Council slapped a £100 ticket on his bike.

4. Horse play

You leave your horse in the street and what do you expect to find when you get back? A small pile of manure perhaps, but not a parking ticket. Amazingly, however, this is exactly what happened to Robert McFarland, a retired blacksmith from Yorkshire when he left his trusty steed, Charlie Boy, for a few brief moments. On the ticket, the over-zealous warden had written the vehicle description as “brown horse”.

5. Daylight robbery

It started off just like any other day for Fred Holt when he went to his local bank. But the ordinary day turned extraordinary when two masked men burst into the bank brandishing an axe and a machete. In the terrifying raid, the robbers held a young cashier hostage with an axe to her throat. Customers were forced to lie on the floor as staff were made to hand over cash.

If being a victim of this horrifying event wasn’t bad enough, 77 year old Mr Holt had parked his car nearby, and by the time he had given a statement to police officers, his car had been there for 20 minutes longer than allowed.

Mr. Holt was not worried because the police officers who interviewed him said that traffic wardens had been told about the raid and asked not to issue tickets. But when Mr Holt got back to his car he was astounded to find a £30 parking ticket pinned to his windscreen – the reason: overstaying his allowed time in the street.

6. Bloody ridiculous

“Do Something Amazing Today” runs the slogan of the National Blood Service. In Sutton, a traffic warden did just that, though not along the lines of “Save a life. Give Blood” that the advert intended.

For four years, a mobile National Blood Service truck has visited Sutton, parking at the same spot outside a group of offices, so volunteers can give blood. But seeing the good citizens of the town turn up and exchange a pint of the red stuff in return for a cup of tea and a biscuit was too much of a temptation for one parking attendant. Whilst those inside were giving blood, the parking attendant gave in his own unique way – in the form of a parking ticket.

Sutton council eventually waived the fine, saying the parking attendant had made a simple error of judgment. Or to put it more aptly, a rush of blood to the head.

7. Bus(ted)

Picture the situation. You’re a bus driver. You’re driving your bus. You see a queue of people waiting for you at a bus stop. You pull over to pick them up. So far, so good. But wait, not everyone wants to buy a ticket. This chap in the queue wants to give you one instead…

This was the extraordinary scene that greeted Manchester bus driver Chris O’Mahony, when he stopped his number 77 bus to let people on. He and his passengers looked on in absolute disbelief as the Manchester City Council parking attendant joined the queue to prepare the parking ticket, deposited the £40 notice and then walked away. The bus driver’s crime? Parking in a restricted area.

The attendant said he'd been told to issue tickets to buses that park. Manchester City Council bosses cancelled the ticket and ordered the warden to be retrained. Hopefully, as something other than a warden.

8. Heart attack

Whilst David Holmes was driving along he felt chest pains. So he immediately drove himself to hospital. When he arrived he was forced to park on the road and was treated for a heart attack. A kind nurse left a note on the windscreen saying it was an emergency and that David's daughter would pick the car up later. Despite the note, a pitiless parking attendant slapped a parking ticket on David’s car.

Despite an appeal to the local council, the £40 fine was not cancelled.

9. Welcome to Warwickshire

Warwick is a beautiful part of England but it had no appeal for one man who received a parking ticket from the local Council.

Krister Nylander was dismayed to receive a parking ticket in the post for parking in Warwick. But he knew the parking ticket was wrong because he lives in Sweden and had not visited England since he was 16. The offending vehicle was his 20-ton snowmobile which had barely ever left his barn, let alone Sweden.

How did it get the ticket? We’ve absolutely no Ikea.

10. Driving you crazy

Driving instructors are used to the trials and tribulations of teaching people to drive. Three point turns, as we all know, can be very tricky to learn. So spare a thought for the driving instructor who got a CCTV parking ticket when his pupil stalled whilst attempting a three-point turn and could not restart the car. The offence? Parking more than 50 centimetres from the kerb.

Think that you can beat any of these tales of woe? Post your stories of parking misery using the form below

List compiled with the help of Barrie Segal, founder of AppealNow.com and author of the book, The Parking Ticket Awards: Crazy Councils, Meter Madness and Traffic Warden Hell

To buy a copy of Barrie’s Book, visit appealnow.com/book.html

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Comments

[peterpoynton]

Go Syddal Road in Bramhall Stockport and watch the Wardens dive up park illegally behind offending vehicles and issue tickets.
I'm hoping that a second warden will one day drive up, park behind the first and issue his colleague with a ticket.......ad infinitum

[Pat]

I was on a bus in Vienna that could not round a corner because of an illegally parked car. When the police arrived, they checked in the shops along the street and, failing to find the owner, they called in reinforcements and lifted the car part of the way onto the sidewalk. As the bus took quite a bit of time easing its way around the tight corner, the police could be seen _putting the car back where they found it_.

[Truck Bed Covers]

Parking tickets are for a non moving violation; therefore, the infractions is not the great, at least where I live.

[d richardson]

if you do not want a ticket don,t come to penrith in the lakes we have idiots for wardens they even ticket prams.Now shops refuse to serve them with snacks.

[Freya]

I live about 10 mins from the millenium stadium in cardiff, we constantly have to fight for parking spaces and there are NEVER wardens, so it's a perfect place for out of towners...however the only time i have ever seen a warden on my street is when parking my own car outside my own house and the lovely lady demanded to see my driving licence to prove i wasn't lieing!! madness (i appologise for bad spelling)

[david wamsley]

It was the first sugnificant snowfall in northeast ohio when I went to a closed parking lot to learn how to control my car in the event of a skid.
I was on private property, no one was near me. I was ticketed for recless operation and 4 pts were put on my licence. Constible Wm Lewis had no interst in this being my first winter of driving. I went to court and was fined 75.00 US. I had the support of my parents and to this day disgust for the sherrif over this incident.

[Derek Crossingham]

Having arrived at work outside of normal working hours thus the works car park being locked, I managed to park in front of a line of parked cars in the road. As I was getting out of the car a traffic warden was walking passedand I enqired if OK to leave car.
Having checked all the criteria ie. distance fron kerb. distance from the corner of the road junction, building lines and no parking restrictions etc he said yes fine no problem. You are not contravening any road traffic laws.
Some fifteen minutes later I realised I had forgotten some paperwork and returned to my car and yes, there on the windscreen was a dreaded little envelope left for me from the traffic militia.
Feeling a little annoyed I found the traffic warden not far away and asked him why he issued the ticket after me specifically relying on his experience to authorise my parking.
He said it must have been some other warden and I should just appeal.
This was at at ime when the police in Birmingham used to be in charge and not the City Council.
I sent three appeals to the chief constable and they were all rejected so I just chose to ignore it completely.
Some months later I got woken up at 2 o'clock in the morning by police and was intimidated to pay the fine for my own good!!
Of course with hind-site I should have let the matter be settled by the courts. Oh maybe not!

[Eliyahu]

I suspect that if these parking wardens had been alive during the blitz, they would have busied themselves writing tickets for the vehicles of the fire brigades who were putting out fires and rescuing the victims of German bombs. "Just doing my job..."

[Lucye]

yeah my lorry sort of fell through a road an i could have died but don't worry go ahead!
YES i am lying with a broken leg in the middle of road i wouldnt want to bother you with calling the ambulance and all that .. its such a hassle, just stick a parking ticket on my bike..

[Mark]

The answer is simple SHOOT THE PARISTES and the people who hire them

[Margaret]

Got a letter saying we hadn't paid a fine received for parking in our area; we hadn't receive the ticket. When we queried the fine, the lady at the other end was very cagey about the details of the "offence". She finally asked the colour of our car; when we said "grey", she said, "so your car isn't a red Ferrari". We told her we would pay the fine if she gave us the Ferrari. It turns out the car had a similar number plate to ours. The reason we found this out is we saw it illegally parked in the same spot two days later.

[Bernard Lawson]

To be a traffic warden one has to be deaf, stupid, lacking understanding and sense of imagination. They have to be on a bonus otherwise why will they give a ticket? I was parked in a disabled bay displaying my badge but a part of my car was outside the box. A chauffeur driven Rolls had parked on a double yellow line in such a way prohibiting the whole of my car to fit in the bay so a foot of the rear was outside the box. I returned to see the Rolls was still there with the driver half asleep but my car had a ticket on it the Rolls had only a sleepy driver. I refused to pay the fine which was eventually cancelled. I then thought, let’s play games with this idiot. I began parking in a taxi rank and every day, sometimes two to three times a day received a ticket which I refused to pay. Once I had twenty tickets I wrote the City of Westminster and advised them that I was bringing an action against them for breaching the Disability Discrimination Act. The Act will not allow councils to offer services to others which discriminates the disabled driver and as there was a taxi rank and no disabled parking places, I was being discriminated against in favour of taxi drivers. Guess what folks, I had all twenty tickets cancelled.

[Russ]

Simple solution, all tickets must be paid, however if incorrectly issued, the issuer has to pay. Job done.

On a more contemporary point (swindon removing speed cameras), if all councils were unable to "make" money from fines and had to provide services with any fines going elsewhere then it would focus them on doing their jobs not generating income.

[the lunatics have taken over the asylum]

wow-food for thought!

my goal is also to leave the former GB for pastures anew where the shadow of bureaucracy doesn't fall on every area of our our lives

!not been mentioned how we're also ripped off when we do buy parking tickets...when did you last receive change from a machine?

?how much clear profit are the parking mafia making over & above the correct charge?

parking attendants do seem to lack interpersonal skills, granted they may suffer abuse-but trace it back & you'll find they / their masters are at the root

as for thugs with immobilising denver boots, they make me sick, you know companies work on a commission basis for allowing these excuses for humans to plague motorists who dare park/stop on their property? and yes they do sit in scruffy little vans waiting for trespassers

when I win the £ottery...

[Gary Read]

I received a ticket outside Chelsea and Westminster hospital despite the warden acknowledging our predicament as I rushed my wife into the building to give birth to our twins.
In a separate incident my wife went to court to have a fine quashed when she produced a photo of her vehicle parked legally within the bay even if the car had been involved in a crash and as such only had the front half remaining.The warden claimed not to have noticed that the rest of the car was missing.
I no longer own a car.

[Av18tor]

Well in the early 1990's, I was a serving Traffic Police Officer in the Guildford, Surrey area. I was attending a call for urgent assistance from another officer. I was driving an unmarked Ford Sierra 4x4 and on my arrival outside the White Lion Walk, stopped on the double yellow lines and rushed in to assist, leaving the blue lights flashing to identify the car, and the Police sign Illuminated in the rear window. I had made my arrival obvious by using the sirens and saw a traffic warden some 50 metres away walking towards me. On my return minutes later, struggling with a violent prisoner, a traffic warden was writing a ticket out for being illegally parked. He started to explain that I had to wait and give him my details before leaving or I would be commiting an offence. I decided to tell him as I left that continuing to obstruct a police officer would leave himself open to arrest. The ticket was cancelled.

[Oliver Gibson]

Can't believe noones mentioned www.pepipoo.com - website all about fighting parking tickets

[Ron]

Wow. As a Canadian on the verge of getting my UK citizenship I can't help but feel a gnawing frustration with these stories.

Local Authorities in the U.K. have become demagogue like power centres, in a country where no one seems to see the problem with photo radar, zillions of cctv cameras and a government that comfortably cross manages personal data for absurd purposes.

Make no mistake people, the system is now not run for the people, it is running the people. Unless you feel you have time to challenge all these minor inconveniences, you will just do what is expected, and pay the fine (ah, just one more!!!).

Bahhhh, Bahhh. Welcome to GB 21st century. Embarrassing.

This used to be a country where people had a sense of right and wrong. Big Brother is now here, all thanks to a creeping social engineering from 10 years of elite, intellectual Labour idealists who have never had a job as credible as working in a chip shop. Time to put real people back in charge.

[Tom]

Ok, I think you all need to pause. Step away from the keyboard for a moment. Take a deep breath. Feel better? Good.

Stop banging on about Newman. Ok, we get it. Most of you disagree with him. That doesn't mean you have to post a comment just to point out that he's wrong, when 20 other people have done the same thing. It makes you look like a sheep.

Now, traffic wardens are not political - or at least shouldn't be; so if you could stop raving about "rabid Thatcherites" and, god forbid, "Red Ken" (Really? Red Ken? Really?), that would be great.

These particular cases cited are just cases of pedantry and a severe lack of common sense.

[Mike Firth]

Newmans lost it I'm afraid

Suggest you dont go to Scarborough North yorks where the council run traffic wardens under another name and work from 8am til 8pm....and love their jobs....one fish and chip shop offers discounts to firemen and police and adds 10% to the cost of food for traffic wardens....

[Tony Sandler]

Now you can see why britain has lost its greatness its ruled by idiots who brook no common sense and only have the idea of fleecing all and sundry I am so lucky I left when Blair came into power I knew that this was the end of common sense especially when they wasted a billion + on a big tent so come on guys lets get rid of the idiots and fools just say no to all of them then a normal life might be resumed but I still would never want to live in such a stupid country again what has happened to the country of my birth!!!

[Neil Chadderton]

I remember the bus driver getting that ticket in Manchester, but I think I can better that. In 2003, a friend of mine, a hackney carriage driver in Bury, got out of his cab to help an elderly passenger with her shopping, and got a ticket whilst his back was turned. The ticket was marked "Offence #84 - Parked on a taxi rank, make of vehicle - taxi". Needless to say the parking attendant was nowhere to be seen. It took a big argument with NCP and Bury MBC officers to get this, and similar other tickets where taxi drivers had been targeted by parking attendants, cancelled. In fairness to Bury MBC, common sense now seems to have prevailed. Of course, overall control of Bury has now passed from Labour to Conservative. You may think that this has something to do with it - I couldn't possibly comment!

[David Bouvier]

An army friend of mine tells the story of his time in Germany. One day as officer on duty, he received a call from the guard house, saying that a tank leaving the base had hit a car parked outside the gate.

He went out with the MPs and found a nearly-flat car that a tank had rolled right over. The owner, when he returned was understandably unhappy, and in the end called the police.

The police turned up, observed that the car was parked illegally - too close to the main gate - told the owner it was his own fault, put a parking ticket on the squashed car, and went away.

[Ross]

Richard Newman - what a LOSER!

[Andy]

The problem is not human error - we al do that - but inability to admit the errors.
On a par with the Swedish snowplough my daughter got a postal ticket for parking her 'orange mercedes' on a double yellow in Islington. The number was hers alright, but DVLA clearly record the vehicle as a 50cc scooter. We live in Yorkshire. Not only would a simple bit of common sense have sounded a warning, but even when challenged, the Islington authorities refused to check the DVLA database, insisting that we appeal. To save the good burgehers of Islington a legal fee - and to help calm the daughter - I emailed everyone I could find in Islington who might have the sanity to spend five minutes investigating. Im the end the mayor picked up the tale and revealed the truth. Left to her own devices, my daughter - only 16 at the time - would've paid the fine, so intimidating was the letter, with threats of increases for delayed payment, possible court summonses etc.

I don't accept that people with lowish intelligence lack common sense, in fact quite the opposite is often true. The problem I think is the arrogance of the administrators in the back office who set the rules, and brook no compromise.

[MaxC]

Wouldn't it be a better idea to reward traffic wardens on how well they keep the traffic flowing in their patch?
I realise it would tax the bean counters' dull imaginations to come up with a method of performance measurement, but simply to count the number of tickets issued does not actually measure the success of the purpose (free-flowing traffic).

[Kit Angel]

St John's Wood High Street in August. Paid and displayed in accordance with posted regs. Left, spotting lurking warden, bang on the minute before expiry. Warden static.

2 months later, home in HK. Letter from car hire co advising that charge on attached "Notice To Owner" had been paid at GBP80 plus GBP27.40 admin charge and VAT, and my credit card duly charged.

Notice to Owner alleged parking in mobile phone payment space after time expired. How strange. There is no "mobile phone parking" bay in that street.

Notice also alleged contravention 3 mins after we left - hmm, wonder why? - and that a ticket had been issued for that contravention. Needless to say we had not been ticketed.

Now we have to await the rental company's appeal and what of the admin charges? How many other tourists can be bothered to take the time and trouble to deal with such blatant dishonesty? Will Westminster discipline these people or their employers?

[Bruce]

Mark Freeman was given a ticket when photographed passing through a red traffic light in 2005 getting out of the way of an ambulance answering an emergency call. He was found guilty by the magistrates court and had to pay up:

http://www.doncasterfreepress.co.uk/free/MOTORIST39S-ANGER-AT-BARMY39-ROAD.1084700.jp

[Neil]

Jon Sang:
80% of appeals are successful is not the same as 80% of tickets are successfully appealed - obviously only invalid tickets are challenged.

PA Manchester:
I'm sure someone did issue the instuction to ticket buses that park. I'm equally sure that the PA in question did need retraining - if he thought that stopping to take on passengers constituted parking, then he hadn't been properly trained for his job.

[S Lockyer]

I had a ghost ticket once that came through the post. The warden had written a small story in his book about how I had parked in a diplomatic bay, had fallen asleep and then flicked the ticket off the windscreen with my wiper blades.
I was so shocked by this, i took it to the adjudicator (and won). These people should not be employed if they go around making up stories!!
I complained to the council and they said it would be placed "on his file".
Recently I have a had a ticket in london for parking without paying, despite the CEO telling me I could park there because all the signs were missing.....Westminster have said that the CEO's are not there to give parking advice nor would they give conflicting advice !!!! I have no reason to evade paying for parking as my employers pay all my parking !!! Looking forward to seeing the adjudicator .....

[Naing]

Reply to Richard Newman , Please go and see the Shrink - you are not thinking straight.

[Naing]

I had parked in manchester city center and paid for the parking from the machine and the ticket was clearly displayed inside the car covering the entire length of my stay. To my astonishment , when I came out of the local restaurant , I was being issued a parking fine for overstay. But when I looked at the time of alleged offense , it is clearly fallen within the period I had paid for.
The traffic warden had seen too keen to issue fine ticket without checking . How can anyone say they are doing their job.

[James]

I live in the US and I'm sorry but you all seem daft. If it's not parking wardens, then you're complaining about rubbish bin laws. Vote your council out. Pay the fine in small change. Film or photograph the warden cheating. Publicize the names of the wardens and the idiotic council members, who you all voted onto the council, by the way. Say no to this kind of ill treatment. Maybe it will have an effect all the way up the chain. Or you can all be meek little sheep who go where you're told and when.

[S Burns]

In June I parked in a pay & display area (residential) in Wandsworth Borough. As I purchased my ticket from over the road I watched (&filmed) a "parking attendant" round the corner & immediately make out a parking ticket. By the time he'd finished placing the ticket very carefully on the windscreen (I expect that there is a manual covering this positioning) & taking full colour glossy photos from several angles my pay & display ticket was 2.5 minutes old.
Wandsworth Borough VERY KINDLY agreed to waive the fine "on this occasion". How much time (& of course time IS money) do we public spend correcting the stupidity of our councils & their employees?

[Brian Faulkner]

Some years ago my wife (at the time) had the official opening of her shop in Sittingbourne, Kent, on a Saturday. The High Street was closed to traffic on Saturdays. She had asked the Mayor to perform the ceremony and the Mayoral car duly arrived and deposited His Worship. While he was in the shop, his car, with Mayoral flag and insignia received a parking ticket!

[Michael]

Would like to make 2 comments on this subject.

Based on the number of appends whereby people have appealed (and won) against their fines, I'm mostly p***ed off at the amount of taxpayers' time that is wasted handling these appeals.

As a cyclist here in Stockholm, we have cycle lanes, often alongside a parking lane (ie, pavement, room for parking, cycle lane, main traffic). What REALLY annoys me is the number of motorists who double park, blocking the cycle lane and forcing me out into the rest of the traffic. I'd like to see their cars towed immediately.

[Disgruntled Dutch]

Some years ago, whilst visiting the UK, I parked my Dutch plated and NL stickered car at a parking meter in Birmingham. To my surprise, on my return I found a warden in the act of writing a ticket. Upon inquiring as to my offence, for I had put plenty of money in the meter, he replied that I was not displaying a valid Road Tax Disc. Even though I pointed out that in Holland we don't have Tax Discs he continued to write the ticket and place it on my windscreen. At which point I took great joy in removing it and ripping it to shreds before his eyes. A small and petty victory I know but one that still makes me smile.

[I-live-2-ride]

I'd like to see then try some of these crazy things here in America. I think things would get pretty ugly. In Chicago we don't get mad, we get even.

[David]

At the beginning of 2004 the roads of Birmingham city centre froze over in a freak weather event known as "winter" just before the evening rush hour. Snowploughs were dispatched but got stuck in traffic, while the guy supposed to be in control had gone home early. So the entire city ground to a halt and many people were forced to abandon their cars by the roadside and walk back home as all main roads out the city were gridlocked.

Next morning when they came to retrieve their cars, they found the parking attendants hadn't made it home either...

[Tim T]

See this about the parking warden in Torquay who couldn't tell the time.
Or the one about the jobsworth who ticketed RNLI crew who couldn't park in their normal spot on a shout because a council bin lorry was in the way.
We have more than our fair share of numpty wardens in the west country.

http://www.thisiswesternmorningnews.co.uk/news/Parking-tickets-RNLI-crew-shout/article-265218-detail/article.html
http://www.thisiswesternmorningnews.co.uk/livingcornwall/Traffic-warden-couldn-t-tell-time/article-222675-detail/article.html

[pk]

in london, they dont put tickets on windows, they have cctv, take pictures and it arrives in the post

you dont event know you've been caught - until the post man comes.

[Duncan F]

I lived in Hong Kong in the 80's. The parking wardens at that time were very diligent. I used to park for lunch at a restaurant near the Lion Rock Tunnel. One meter in particular was always free - it was for 30 minutes - but the meter always went to penalty after 27 minutes. I loved returning to it after 26 minutes to foil the hovering Parking Warden. This pantomime went on for the 5 years I was there. It was never fixed!

[Ben]

My problem with parking tickets is that they are rarely about safety (those parking on dangerous bends or zebra crossings often deserve tickets), but instead exploit motorists' mistakes for council revenue. For example councils often install unnecessary yellow lines, cut down on free parking spaces, introduce complex time restrictions and then provide insufficient or expensive car parks. This often cripples local shops, forcing people to supermarkets with big car parks, and makes residents unhappy. If I were a traffic warden I would quit and perhaps get a job which helps the community, like a dustman or road sweeper, or graffiti remover or librarian. Nobody "needs" to do that job.

[stephen]

oh sorry Sarah. i missed the bit about their being blue badgers. Section 18 of the Act specifically excludes blue badgers. Back to the Drawing Board.

[stephen]

its easy, Sarah. the Transportation of Badgers Act (1987) allows you to park anywhere free of charge when transporting badgers. Just write on the appeal form "Transporting Badgers" and forget about the whole thing.

[jocky]

Dear Richard Newman,
I am having trouble understanding the final sentenc of your post."It is bizarre that any attempt to address this issue are often as some kind of left-wing conspiracy by people who don't seem to be able to work themselves up over far more important issues"

I'm guessing that should read"It is bizarre that any attempt to address this issue is often seen as some kind of left-wing conspiracy by people who don't seem to be able to work themselves up over far more important issues"
Watch out mate- it's a slippery slope at the bottom of which is your local parking department!

[jocky]

I want to thank all you previous posting people for your comments, they have been most informative/entertaining. As I was a courier in London, I have had many experiences with traffic wardens and parking tickets. I learned a few things which in the end stemmed the flow,so I will share them with you all. The first was to cover up my number plate when making a delivery. That's why you see so many bikes with elastic bands on the plate! The second is that if you have to park illegally, then make sure that the yellow lines are void, due to not being continuous and unbroken which occurs when they dig up the road and forget to join up the lines- this is more common than you think, and makes that whole stretch nul and void for parking tickets. Then you photograph it and the apeall will be successful(I did twice) You have to familiarise yourself with the rules yourself because just as there are rules for us on how we should park etc there are also rules that the councils have to follow too- and so a lot of the time people pay fines when they could have gotten off- as the council had a violation of the rules themselves also. We live in a world gone mad, and of course it aggrieves us all to see such systems in place as we have with the Parking/Fines system.
Me I have a problem with it for this reason. It doesn't handle the problem it was designed to handle.Illegal parking is not reduced by it so the system doesn't work. I wonder what the answer is to the problem?

[sarah]

got one today sunday. parked my moped in a side street. got a ticket for parking in a restricted area during a certain time. there are only two signs in the whole street, one a neighorhood watch sign and the other a dog fool sign. No way am i paying it!

i also got fined in tesco car park last year for staying over the 2 hours time with DISABLED badged in the window. This is a SUPERSTORE tesco. i wrote to the manager, got a reply which stated the allowed time but no refund.

I understand they're just doing their job but i do a job! i work bloody hard all the time for pennies and i have to do it with a smile on my face.

There are some nice ones out there. I found one in Northampton when i was rushing to move my car with my blue badgers in and he told me not to worry, if you have badgers and are parked in a proper parking bay, the 3 hour time limit doesn't apply.

Any tips on how to fight my ticket?

[Craig]

This april (2008) I received a parking penalty notice and demand for payment from shefield city council. It stated that I was not entitled to claim a discount because it was more than 14 days since the offence in a sheffield car park.

The fine was for a parking incident on 6th January 2007 (over a year previous).

I did not even purchase my car until January 13th 2008, and the previous owner to me (a mechanic) had purchased the car from a sheffield owner in october 2007.

So why on earth were sheffield city council wasting tax payers money chasing me. By the way, I won my appeal :)

[Olivier]

wow, does anyone still pay their parking tickets ? I stopped out of civil disobedience and incredulity at our ridiculous local council years ago !
Anyway, if you don't pay they write a letter, and sell the debt on to a company that writes 2 letters, threatens court action and promptly forgets you ! Ha !