Blogger gets Wellington parking fines reversed
Well done to Dave at Big News who blogs:
The Wellington City Council is to waive and refund thousands of dollars of parking tickets to motorists after wardens and council contractors blatantly ignored Council policy in issuing parking infringements. …
According to the Council’s parking manual [not online], infringement notices are “not issued…until six minutes after a (clearway) restriction begins, or within six minutes of when the restriction ends”. Yet in the past two years, 181 were – including people parked for a matter of seconds, still in their vehicles. The Council’s manual also states that “when the person in charge of the vehicle is present, then he or she in the first instance should be moved on”.
So basically the Council had a camera that was photographing cars on a clearway and ticketing them – even if the driver was remaining in the car and just dropping someone off etc.
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August 25th, 2011 at 10:12 am
Its not about parking, its about revenue.
August 25th, 2011 at 10:19 am
Point of order DPF about your last paragraph: Clearways, like yellow lines, don’t mean “No Parking” – they actually mean “No Stopping”. True story.
Really this whole story shows you just how lax and casual Wellington motorists are.
In Auckland, the minute it becomes a clearway, they tow you. Thousands of people’s need of an extra lane to get to work is deemed more important than whatever stupid thing you want to do – and fair enough IMO!
If you must park here, park around the corner on a side street and GTFO of everyone else’s way.
August 25th, 2011 at 10:20 am
I’ve been disputing a ticket for a clearway violation. I arrived just as the ticket was issued, asked (very politely of course) to be excused but was declined (fair enough), the warden watched me drive away. I paid the $60 fine but the council is insisting I pay the towage component as well. Dear council: Nuts!
August 25th, 2011 at 10:35 am
Someone I knew in Hendeson had to fight the fuckwits at the council when they were ticketed for parking in a no stopping zone when they were turning left into a garage and had to give way to someone turning right, I shit you not.
They ended up winning after a long protracted complaint that ended up in court.
That along with the other little rorts these SCUM perpetrate upon the good people of West Auckland is beyond belief.
I am all for a fair cop but that sort of fairness is long gone. All we have now is parking Nazi’s and tow truck drivers who should be in jail for dishonesty (I could go on about that issue at length but you get the picture).
August 25th, 2011 at 10:40 am
I agree with the six minute thing.
But to be fair I have seen traffic badly affected when some bozo stops on an arterial route that has a clearway, forcing everyone to try and squeeze 3 lanes into 2 while he spends 5 minutes conversing with the passenger.
August 25th, 2011 at 10:44 am
@rouppe agree and I really get pissed when it is a taxi and passenger with no change/credit card/eftpos and luggage.
August 25th, 2011 at 11:01 am
The whole thing should be about making life in the city easier for all but it has long since turned into a scam and a cash cow for councils who now are finding more and more ways to make it impossible to go about your lawful business without copping an infringement.
I hope there is a special place in hell reserved for traffic wardens and their mafia bosses
August 25th, 2011 at 11:05 am
No point shooting the messenger Andrei. There’s no reason for beef with the wardens, it would be chaos without them.
August 25th, 2011 at 11:15 am
The wife received a ticket in the mail for a parking infringement that she never knew she had committed. It arrived 14 days after the “offence” and she really struggled to remember even being in the area. She never saw the parking nazi so he/she didn’t have the guts to front the wife face to face to hand her the ticket. I queried the ticket with the council and received an answer that it is legal to be sent a parking ticket via mail. Gutless wonders!
August 25th, 2011 at 11:16 am
Could be worse – you could have to suffer a torture of a thousand cuts by dealing with a bunch of complete wan***s at Tournament Parking in Auckland.
They would win the award for the biggest bunch of arrogant misfits in the parking business. And when that list includes the likes of Wilson Parking, that’s saying something…
So its good to hear that common sense has prevailed in this case.
August 25th, 2011 at 11:33 am
While we are on parking. I was in a parking building in Wellington. The congestion getting out was bad and we inched slowly down the levels. When I got to the ticket booth my parking time had gone over another increment, which I refused to pay. Guy said I had to, so I switched off my engine, wound up the window and started reading my book. Ten minutes later they raised the barrier and let me out.
August 25th, 2011 at 11:38 am
i was sitting in my car in an 90% empty car park and a traffic warden asked me to move or he would ticket me.
I explained, the car park is empty and I would move if necessary but the warden sternly announced that it doesn’t work that way. Dick!
August 25th, 2011 at 12:01 pm
Awesome!
August 25th, 2011 at 12:20 pm
RRM: Clearly you know nothing about Parkwise.
August 25th, 2011 at 12:21 pm
Obviously I don’t cabbage.
Would you care to enlighten me?
August 25th, 2011 at 12:43 pm
Parkwise is the company contracted by the council to Collect revenue/enforce parking restrictions in the city. In 2009, the Dompost ran a story outlining that Parken enforcement in wellington raised a staggering $9m in revenue. This was, believe it or not, $1m more than Auckland city council raised in the same period.
They are well known for employing all sorts of tactics in order to issue infringement notices. One example that clearly shows the prevailing attitude of parkwise employees, Is that i was parked outside work, on a two hour meter. I had Paid up and the ticket was clearly visible on my dashboard. with 5 minutes left on the ticket, I went out to my car with the intention of driving across town for some K-Fry. The sight that met me as i walked out of the building was the resident parkwise officer, standing next to my car, ticketing device at the ready. Fair enough i thought, My time is nearly up. So I sat in the car, and rolled myself a cigarette – as i usually do before departing. The whole time said officer was standing beside the passenger door eyeballing me. So when i wound the window down and politely asked if there was an issue, he replied “I’m waiting to see what you are going to do” I responded that it was pretty clear what i was doing as my car was running, my seatybelt was on and i was rolling a smoke.
In the same area, I have been ticketed in the time it takes to walk to, and back from a pay and display machine that actually works.
Lastly, from the office window we’d see the ‘officers’ hiding behind trees at 9.25am in order to nab the few unlucky people whos clocks were out a fraction that parked before clearway restrictions were lifted at 9.30am.
In short, parkwise are cunts!
August 25th, 2011 at 1:28 pm
@cabbage – don’t forget that in Wellington if you get a Pay and Display ticket from a machine that is not in the ‘zone’ you are parked in, you can get ticketed. I am not sure if that was dropped after people complained about it.
August 25th, 2011 at 1:36 pm
Brian – yeah i know. Most helpful when C/C payment and txt payment are down!
August 25th, 2011 at 1:39 pm
Well if your agenda is to get more people on public transport you’d expect a regime of severe ticketing wouldn’t you????
August 25th, 2011 at 1:46 pm
@OTGO – are you serious? When was the last time you got a train in Wellington?
August 25th, 2011 at 1:51 pm
The most famous Parkwise stunt was ticketing a whole lot of cars on Thorndon Quay after the Phoenix play-off match went into extra time.
August 25th, 2011 at 2:11 pm
I can remember a story from a few years ago where there was one on-street car park in Wellington city with two meters on it – one at either end.
A local warden (“not one of our best” was the quote from his boss) would routinely ticket people who had only put money into one of the meters.
August 25th, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Brian Smaller 1:46 pm.My question wasn’t just about WGN. What’s your point?
August 25th, 2011 at 2:16 pm
@cabbage
“Parken enforcement in wellington raised a staggering $9m in revenue. This was, believe it or not, $1m more than Auckland city council raised in the same period.”
Considering now bad the parking Nazi’s are in Auckland must mean Wellington is hell on earth….. and the parking is bad!
Sorry.. couldn’t help me-self
August 25th, 2011 at 3:53 pm
In the same area, I have been ticketed in the time it takes to walk to, and back from a pay and display machine that actually works.
That is shocking. I’ve sometimes wondered if that is possible.
February 1st, 2012 at 1:07 pm
Wellington is hell on earth when it comes to parking.It makes every visit that I have to do in a car stressful.Give me Downtown in Rome any day.