Ticket collector whines

[Sean]

Where I used to live in Birmingham they had a very nice system. Big signs warned potential parkers that the parking was for permit holding residents only and warned of the consequences of illegal parking. If you arrived home to find an interloper in your spot you simply called the number on the sign and watched while the offending vehicle was towed away... within 15 mins guaranteed or free permit for the following year.

[Andrew D]

What if the person who parked in "your spot" also had a permit?

[Sean]

They would only do that temporarily whilst waiting for the tow-truck to free up their spot. It's called being neighbourly. If somebody arrived home and saw a vehicle without a permit parked in somebody else's spot they would call the truck. Each parking space was marked with the house number. It worked beautifully!

[Andrew D]

So the permit gave you the exclusive right to park in front of your house. As I wrote before, I would happily have paid for that. But what I was forced to pay for was a permit that did not give me the exclusive right to park anywhere, let alone in front of my own house. The only thing it guaranteed me was that I would not be cited for parking in my neighborhood, which was exactly the situation before the permit system was implemented.

[Scooter]

As unfortunate as that was, it doesn't apply to the situation at hand. This woman accumulated £11,000 in parking fines while parking "outside her home". Clearly, finding a parking space was not her problem. She was simply too lazy and/or too stupid to register her change of address in order to avail herself of a £30 permit.

[Andrew D]

Had she spent the thirty pounds for the permit, what, exactly, would she have received in exchange for her money?

[rubato]

Had she spent the thirty pounds for the permit, what, exactly, would she have received in exchange for her money?

Well let's see: £11,000 pounds vs £30 cost.

She'd have saved £10,970 .

yrs,
rubato

[Andrew D]

So she would have received nothing.

[Scooter]

That's right, Andrew, she's been parking in outer space the past two years; she got those 160 parking tickets in error. In addition, she was completely delusional and was never parked outside her home when she says she was.

[Gob]

Had she spent the thirty pounds for the permit, what, exactly, would she have received in exchange for her money?

The right to park in a reserved section of parking outside her house.

[rubato]

So she would have received nothing.

If $17,297 is nothing, then good for you! That's a pretty fancy vacation for us.

yrs,
rubato

[Andrew D]

So, rubato, if she had paid for the permit, the government would have sent her a check for 10,970 pounds?

No?

I didn't think so. So she would have received nothing.

Of course, the government would not now be coming after her for 11,000 pounds. Which just goes to show that the demand that she pay 30 pounds for the permit was simple extortion in the first place.

I still do not know how the permit system works where she lives, Gob. As I have repeatedly said, if the permit would have guaranteed her a parking space in front of her house, then it was fair to demand that she pay for it; if not, then it was not.

And I don't know what Scooter is raving about.

[Scooter]

No, of course you don't.

So is it your position that it is wrong in any circumstance to charge for parking unless one is guaranteed access to a specific space? Or does this ridiculous position only apply to on-street parking?

[Andrew D]

No, of course you don't.

So that makes at least two of us.

So is it your position that it is wrong in any circumstance to charge for parking unless one is guaranteed access to a specific space?

No.

Airports (at least around here) have parking lots. You pay when you go in, and you take whatever space is available. Provided that there is some space available -- and if there is not, either you are denied entrance on that basis in the first place, or you get your money back -- you get what you paid for. If you don't want to pay to park in the lot, you can take a taxi or a shuttle to the airport, or you can simply have someone drop you off there.

There are numerous other examples of charging for parking to which I do not object. I am disinclined to belabor them.

... this ridiculous position ....

Infinitely less ridiculous than your evident position that it is perfectly fine for the government to make people pay, in whatever amount the government pleases, for a parking permit, even if that permit does not mean that the person who was compelled to pay for it actually receives the ability to park.

You made that position quite clear with this:

This woman accumulated £11,000 in parking fines while parking "outside her home". Clearly, finding a parking space was not her problem.

Well, if "finding a parking space [is] not [a] problem," then why is the government demanding that people pay for parking permits in the first place?

The principal rationale asserted by governments for charging people to pay for parking in their own residential areas is that parking is sufficiently scarce that without a permit-parking regime, residents will be unable to park in their own residential areas. If, as you say, finding a parking space in a particular area is not a problem, that rationale collapses.

And leaves behind it what? Nothing but the naked desire of the government to charge people for doing what they had already been doing for free.

[Gob]

Well, if "finding a parking space [is] not [a] problem," then why is the government demanding that people pay for parking permits in the first place?

.

She was able to find a space as there were limited number of parking permits allocated for the street section, obvioulsy the neighbours had paid into that, she hadn't. Therefore she deserved to be fined.

[Andrew D]

Another thing: She has been cited 160 times for parking in front of her own residence without a permit. But how many times did she actually park in front of her own residence without a permit?

The article quoted in the opening posting strongly suggests that she did not park there 160 times. She claims, without apparent contradiction, that she was unemployed. So we can safely presume that she was not driving away from the parking space to go to work and then returning and parking in that space again.

(She also claims that because she was unemployed, the article says, "she could not afford a permit anyway". So much for the "She was simply too lazy and/or too stupid to register her change of address in order to avail herself of a £30 permit" argument.)

She claims, again without apparent contradiction, that "fines were being added daily." That suggests that parking-enforcement people were heaping citation upon citation upon citation, not because she had parked there again and again and again, but because she was still parked there.

So if she parked her car there and left it there for an extended period -- hardly unlikely for an unemployed person who could not even afford a 30-pound parking permit -- how many times did she commit the offense of parking their without a permit. Once. Not 360 times. Once.

Suppose that I kidnap you and hold you for six hours. How many times have I kidnapped you? Once. If I hold you for six days, how many times have I kidnapped you? Once. If I hold you for six weeks or six months or six years, how many times have I kidnapped you? Once.

In order to show that she committed the alleged offense 160 times, the prosecution needs to prove that she parked where she did without the required permit 160 times. Parking in a place once is not parking in that place 160 times, even if one parks in that place long enough for parking-enforcement officers to issue 160 citations.

Unless the prosecution can show that between each issuance of a citation, she moved her car out of that parking space and then parked there again, she has provably committed the alleged offense only once. Which means that 159 of the 160 citations should be summarily dismissed.

[Andrew D]

Well, if "finding a parking space [is] not [a] problem," then why is the government demanding that people pay for parking permits in the first place?

.

She was able to find a space as there were limited number of parking permits allocated for the street section, obvioulsy the neighbours had paid into that, she hadn't. Therefore she deserved to be fined.

Is there evidence of that? Is there evidence showing that before the government instituted the permit-parking regime, she had been unable to park where she did? That only because of the government-imposed permit-parking regime was she able to find parking in front of her own residence?

Such evidence may exist, but I have not seen it. And without it, the ostensible rationale for imposing the permit-parking regime falls apart.

The real reason, of course, remains intact: The government wants more money.

[Gob]

Well I have only personal experience Andrew, my mother still lives two streets back of there.

My mother doesn't drive nor owns a car.

[Sean]

In order to show that she committed the alleged offense 160 times, the prosecution needs to prove that she parked where she did without the required permit 160 times. Parking in a place once is not parking in that place 160 times, even if one parks in that place long enough for parking-enforcement officers to issue 160 citations.

Unless the prosecution can show that between each issuance of a citation, she moved her car out of that parking space and then parked there again, she has provably committed the alleged offense only once. Which means that 159 of the 160 citations should be summarily dismissed.

I doubt it. She would have been issued a ticket for each citation. After 160 of these either her wipers were bulging or she had a collection of them in her house. Either way she couldn't really have failed to notice them unless she was completely housebound and possibly blind. Whichever, the ticket is not just a penalty but a warning to 'move your fucking car'!
Ignoring the warning leads to further tickets and rightly so.
Anyway, this being the UK, the car would have been clamped or towed long before the windscreen wipers were bulging too much. This means that she was probably collecting tickets and refusing to pay them. I reckon she's got what she deserved...

[Andrew D]

Is anything in that intended to show that she parked without a permit more than once?

If so, I do not see it.

If not, then the fact remains that, from what we can gather from what has been reported, she committed the offense of parking without the required permit exactly once. 159 citations out the window.