Parking - A cautionary tale

[Peter Kazmierczak]

When out photographing, it's not always easy to find a nearby parking spot. However, I found a suitable road with signs indicating that one can park partly on the pavement. I duly parked-up and off I went.

 

 

On my return a couple of hours later I noticed that the car on the otherside of the road to me had received a parking ticket. I couldn't understand why as they'd parked just like me - not on any yellow lines and there weren't any other restrictions such as resident's permits or time restrictions.

 

Eventually I found out why as on the reverse of the "pavement parking sign" (which you don't really notice when parking) there was a red diagonal line across it, indicating that you can only park freely one side of the sign. I was lucky that I didn't reverse back a little past the sign (as had the person across the road), otherwise I'd have been caught too.

 

Thought it was rather confusing as double yellow lines commenced just over a car's length from the pavement parking sign, which might have lured motorists into thinking one could park there.

 

 

[polybear]

I'd be tempted to appeal on the grounds of unclear signage.  Maybe I wouldn't win - so what?  I'd tie them up in as much paperwork ping pong as possible, for as long as possible, to make sure they made b*gger all profit out of my parking fine.

[JDW]

I believe that the sign actually means "start of..." and so logically on the other side, going the other way, there would need to be an "end of..." sign, but I agree with you, its not something that most people would have checked, me included.  

 

I'm still annoyed, years later, that I got "got" in a pay and display car park in Leicester, where the sign behind the machine showed rates up to 12 hours, we were going to be there longer so we put in the 12-hour fee, what we didn't see in rushing for our train was that the sign continued down behind the parking meter and said "Evening rates..." and "if staying over 12 hours you must add the evening fee to the number of hours you are staying before that..." or something along those lines.  Fine if you think to check behind the meter when paying, but how many didn't?  Quite a few I suspect.

[The Stationmaster]

Sometimes there are good times - I know a station car park, operated by contractors to the TOC, where the fee is £4.50 for periods over 6 hours.  If you put in a 50p piece before the other coins it will let you have a ticket timed up to midnight on the day of issue.  Unfortunately a lot of non-rail users seem to make use of it as well.

 

PS And localy we have the opposite - in a number of streets the parking requires a ticket taken froma nearby meter, the charge is 30p for two hours.  Reasonable?  Well not bad but the catch is that the smallest denomination coin the meters will accept is a 20p piece.

[Wheatley]

Quote

I'd be tempted to appeal on the grounds of unclear signage.

 

But it's not unclear. It's perpendicular to the carriageway so the restriction/permission commences at the commencement sign (the blue one) and stops at the termination sign (with the line through it). In exactly the same way as you can't appeal a fine for speeding in a 30 because you could see the derestriction sign in the distance.

 

If it was parallel to the carriageway like a 'No waiting' or parking times restriction plate you'd have grounds.