Parking Mad

At the moment, the BBC has a documentary series on about Traffic Wardens (Parking Agents, Collection Agents, whatever else you want to call them) called “Parking Mad” and it’s been pretty interesting.

What I find most interesting is the people who don’t pay their parking fines, then get all snotty and sweary about it when the costs for it go up and up.

No matter how paranoid you are, I think the great majority of parking wardens just give tickets to people who’ve overstayed their tickets, not bothered, or are parking like cunts in the first place. I’ve spoken to a fair few over the years (I’m a twat for talking to just about anyone) and haven’t ever really come across a bad one. I’m sure they exist, don’t get me wrong – I just don’t believe every one is a bastard, or hates every other driver.

So if you’ve got a ticket- and again I emphasise that this is In My Experience Only – the odds are that you’ve fucked up and done something wrong. The ticket is going to cost you £30 to pay in the next 28 days, or £60 after that (and with extra costs the more they have to do to recover it) – so just sodding pay it. It’s a fee for fucking up.

I think I’ve now had four parking tickets. Two in Cambridge (where I’d be the first to admit that I pushed my luck anyway, and/or forgot to renew the ticket at the end of its duration) and two in London when I was commuting, and had a brain-fart about paying the ticket. The London ones were a pain, because you couldn’t buy the ticket before 9am- not from the machine, not online. I *know* it was a plan to get more people to forget to pay it, and thus do the tickets. But in six months, I forgot a grand total of twice.

I just don’t get the point of not paying a ticket – you know you’re going to lose anyway, so you might as well get it paid while it’s cheap.  Even if I were going to protest it, I’d pay while lodging the appeal. (Unless it’s better to not do so – I don’t know, never had to do it)

The programme seems to specialise in these ball-bags who park like twats, make a mistake, and then blame everyone but themselves. Of course, they don’t pay, and then bitch even more when the bailiffs come round (or stop them in the road) and charge £500 for what could’ve been dealt with for £30.

I’ve said many times that there’s whole heaps of stuff about people that I simply don’t get. Parking tickets are just one more facet of that lack of knowledge/understanding.