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Lovely Rita and her IPOD

Who likes parking wardens, besides Paul McCartney that is?

Last year on a day of weather most foul, I dropped Nik off at school. And since everybody else was doing the same, parking was atrocious, chaotic in fact. So I pulled up at the vacant bus stop, he alighted and off I went, happily oblivious to the pair of eyes that had been watching me.

And a few days later a parking infringement notice appeared in my letter box - for "parking" on a bus stop. Wouldn't have been there for more than 20 seconds but that was enough to cop a fine.

Hey ho - no appeal, forty dollars the poorer.

Well the truth is emerging - parking charges and infringement fees are a cash cow.

It seems Wellingtonian wardens are awarded Ipods and holidays if they issue the required number of notices or better.

Legend has it that Paul McCartney was more sanguine than most over a parking ticket he received while recording Sergeant Pepper - instead of becoming angry he penned the now famous song.



My guess is that the royalties from this song more than covered the infringement fee Mr McCartney (now Sir Paul) incurred that day, and thus he had no reason to be grumpy.

Comments

  1. Many stories such as yours are coming out after that particular story.

    I find it amusing that a warden describes the culture (and pressure) of ticketing pushed by management, with suitable proof and then verified by many individuals writing into the paper, yet management say the opposite. They lie unto themselves.

    I think this example relates to one of the reasons many people are against the law that criminalises parents for a little smack.

    The management will be saying "no such thing" even as they pressure their wardens to strictly enforce the law to an unjust degree.

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  3. That sucks. There is another story on Stuff with others having your experience of being ticketed while dropping kids off, or even pulling over to take a cellphone call.

    LinkLink

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  4. Well, if the ticket was for aprking, challenge it as you didn't park. You should have been ticketed for stopping or standing.

    As for IMF's comment about people pulling over to take a phone call, the reason does not mattter, illegal parking is illegal parking. No standing zones usually exist for safety reasons.

    Like any other offence, if you abide by the law you won't get a ticket. Why should your convenience be held to be greater than that of anyone else in the community?

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  5. When the law is so strictly enforced, then we see major dangers:

    1. All assurances by politicians that police (or in this case wardens) will use their "discretion" and not over-prosecute becomes suspect. Instead, we see a culture of enforcing the law to an overly zealous degree.

    2. When people are unfairly ticketed, then the option of taking it to court, missing work and defending ones innocence becomes a punishment in its own right.

    3. We see respect for the law eroded, because the law, as it is enforced, is less concerned about justice and more concerned about raising revenue.


    There will be gray areas, but all that has been proven today with the article is that we cannot expect the laws to be enforced fairly, and therefore we must be very suspicious of the myriad of new laws.

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  6. Yes the problem is the law in traffic enforcement has moved from a safety focus to a revenue generating one.

    Thus a few years ago on New Years day I saw no police on the highway until close to town where there were no less than three radar set ups on a steep down hill sections of a four lane motorway where "speed creep" is a hazard even for the most law abiding driver.

    Money trumps both road safety and a common sense approach to enforcement.

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  7. The speed limit is the speed limit regardless of the lay of the land.

    If you cannot control your speed going down hill, perhaps you are not suited to driving.

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  8. You'ld make a good parking warden leftrightout - you would be temperamentally suited I'm sure

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  9. "Like any other offence, if you abide by the law you won't get a ticket."

    Leftrightout, you remind me of the nasty little revolutionary zealot in Dr. Zhivago who says "we have the right..."
    And Zhivago corrects him, saying "you have power, not the right"

    "if you abide by the law" eh...so if a far-right government introduced a law requiring all leftist lickspittles to wear a red star armband, you'd have no problem complying--since it's the law?

    Lord Blackburn, a very famous Brit judge once opined that responsible citizens have an obligation to ignore or break bad laws and that a consensus of citizens was sufficient to give that act legitimacy.
    But the left, in their collectivist idiocy would never dare to exercise such personal judgement and responsibility.
    That's what collectivism does to people.

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