University Allows Students To Pay For Parking Tickets With Food Donations

We came cross this story published on Aprils Fools but it was no joke!

University of Florida President W. Kent Fuchs announced on Twitter that people who had been cited for parking violations on campus over the past year could get amnesty for their ticket by donating food.

"For many years, parking tickets have been a source of contention between the university administration, and our students, staff, faculty, alumni, and visitors," Fuchs begins in the the 38-second video posted by UF's twitter account.

"I am pleased to announced, on this first day of April, that UF will have an amnesty program for parking fines. And today I'm calling on Scott Fox, the director of Transportation and Parking Services to create by tomorrow, a program that will allow the past twelve months of parking tickets to be forgiven."

But, as nearly people found out this week, the UF president wasn't kidding. According a tweet from Fuchs, nearly 2,000 citations were dismissed in exchange for 9,455 canned food donations.

The "Food for Fines" program applied to all unpaid parking citations issued by the University of Florida Office of Transportation and Parking Services between April 1st, 2017 and April 1, 2018.

Donations included toiletries, canned and boxed nonperishable foods, baby formula and diapers. Participants needed to bring in at least five items per citation and there was no limit on the amount of citations that could be forgiven.

The canned food donations will head for the shelves of the school's Field and Fork Pantry.

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Grieving daughter furious after council issue parking ticket on dead mum's car and refused to drop it

A grieving daughter was left "crying her eyes out" after a council refused to drop a parking ticket it had given to her dead mum - forcing her to fight it.

The woman, who did not want to be named, told the Hull Daily Mail : “My mum deteriorated quite rapidly, and had not really been able to go anywhere since last May.

“She was sedated on January 14, and she did not speak again until she died on the 16th.

“A few days later, my sister was at mum’s house to pick up some boxes to take to the tip, and found the parking fine on her car.”

The woman immediately rang East Riding of Yorkshire Council, and spoke to the customer services team. She praised them for the support they gave, and they asked her to bring her mum’s death certificate into their office as proof.

The woman’s sister took the certificate in, and it was passed on to the council’s parking department.
The 42-year-old spoke of her shock, however, when they came back and said they were upholding the fine.

“When I found out we still had to appeal against the fine, despite everything that has happened, I could have cried my eyes.”

A spokesman for the council said: "In light of this information the parking ticket has now been cancelled and we will be writing to this lady with confirmation."

Dyslexic driver fined after mixing up a zero with the letter O in car-parking app

A dyslexic man has been locked in a battle over a parking fine for £100 after mixing up a zero with an O.

Mr Nick Preedy said he had been parking in the spot in Nottingham for several months and using an app to pay when he was suddenly hit with a fine, despite having forked out the £8.20 for 12 hours of parking.

Nick said he had tried to appeal the fine he was slapped with last year by Excel Parking – but was surprised to be hit with a summons to the Small Claims Court over the matter.

He told The Sun Online: “I’d been using this app for well over a year with the same registration registered when I got a ticket.

“I said, I’m not paying, I’ve got proof, and carried on pestering them, and emailed them the proof of the parking ticket.”

The car had been registered under the parking app with an O, rather than a zero.
Nick added: “I didn’t hear anything back then the other day I received a letter saying I’ve got to go to court over it.”

The saga has been going on since January last year.

He said: “It’s been bad enough getting letters at the beginning, with them saying ‘we want the money’.

“It’s like being threatened and bullied.”

Speaking to the Sun Online, he said: “For me, it wasn’t as if I didn’t pay, I hadn’t of been thinking that I couldn’t afford it and that I would try to sneak in real quick, which people do.

“My partner said I should just pay it but I’ve already paid for the parking, I’m not paying for the ticket.

“I’ve tried talking to them, all they want is the money.”

A spokesman for Excel parking said Mr Preedy had to opportunity to appeal to the fine twice before the matter was handed to debt recovery.

They said: “Furthermore, he could have also contacted the Debt Recovery Agent who we engaged to handle matters prior to it being referred to our current ‘Agent. It was at this point, Mr Preedy made contact although no reference was made to his dyslexia.

“Inevitably, we have incurred additional costs in getting to where we are now and the matter could have been addressed much sooner had Mr Preedy contacted us early last year.

“However, as a gesture of goodwill, we will contact Mr Preedy with details of a settlement figure we are prepared to accept without the matter proceeding to court.”

But Mr Preedy said he was now willing to go to court over the matter, despite the offer on the table to have a one hour mediation to discuss a settlement cost.

He said: “It’s the principle of the thing.

“I’m not sitting there for an hour listening to them argue about money. If the court says I have to pay it, I will.”

A spokesman for Excel parking added: “We would always advise motorists to contact the parking operator as soon as possible if they consider they have genuine grounds to challenge a PCN, or have special mitigating circumstances they wish to be considered.

“Often motorists are misguided on bad advice given on some websites and take no action at all in the hope that the matter goes away.”

Source: The Sun

Court orders woman to pay £24,500 to private parking company

Story Source BBC Tayside and central Scotland

A woman has been ordered to pay a private parking company £24,500 in unpaid charges.

Carly Mackie ignored hundreds of parking tickets claiming that they were unenforceable. The tickets were for leaving her car at Dundee's Waterfront without a permit.

Ms Mackie said that she had a right to park in the area as she was living at a flat with her stepfather, who was a tenant and had a garage at the property.

Sheriff George Way said the charges were from a "valid contract" and she was liable for them.

Vehicle Control Services (VCS) took the 28-year-old to court last year after she failed to pay £18,500 in private parking notices.
 
Sheriff Way said Ms Mackie had parked outside the garage and would not accept the offer of a parking permit for a space nearby for £40 per month.

What does the law say?

Parking tickets issued by private companies in private car parks are not fines, they can be classed as parking charge notices. These are different from Penalty Charge Notices which are issued by council traffic wardens and the police. These are regulated fines, backed by legislation.

Private landowners and car parking firms do not have the power to issue Penalty Charge Notices
However, by parking in a restricted private area, a motorist can be considered to be agreeing to a contract with the landowner or car park operator, provided there is adequate signage warning of the charge.Failing to pay can be seen as a breach of contract and the car parking firm can take the motorist to court to recover their losses.


The sheriff said Ms Mackie had "entirely misdirected herself" on both the law and "the contractual chain" in the case.

He said: "The defender is bound by that contract and incurred the parking charge on each occasion.
"The defender refused to pay the parking charges not because she was unaware of the parking scheme or the terms of the notices or the financial consequences of parking at any time, but because she did not believe that the charges were valid in law.

"The parking charges flow from a valid contract between the pursuers and the defender and she is liable for them."

Chatbot lawyer overturns 160,000 parking tickets in London and New York

Free service DoNotPay helped appeal over $4m in parking fines in just 21 months,  19-year-old Joshua Browder built the bot after receiving “countless” parking tickets himself.

An artificial-intelligence lawyer chatbot has successfully contested 160,000 parking tickets across London and New York for free, showing that chatbots can actually be useful.

Dubbed as “the world’s first robot lawyer” by its creator, Joshua Browder a London-born second-year Stanford University student , DoNotPay helps users contest parking tickets in an easy to use chat-like interface.

The program first works out whether an appeal is possible through a series of simple questions, such as were there clearly visible parking signs, and then guides users through the appeals process.

The results speak for themselves. In the 21 months since the free service was launched in London and New York, Browder says DoNotPay has taken on 250,000 cases and won 160,000, giving it a success rate of 64%

“I think the people getting parking tickets are the most vulnerable in society. These people aren’t looking to break the law. I think they’re being exploited as a revenue source by the local government,” Browder told Venture Beat.

Browder intends to expand DoNotPay to Seattle next. He also intends to create a service to help people with flight delay compensation, as well as helping the HIV positive understand their rights and acting as a guide for refugees navigating foreign legal systems.

Did The Traffic Warden Troll The Student?

Most of us will be familliar with that feeling as we race back to our car chanting "please don't let me have got a ticket" in our heads over and over having realised that we overstayed our ticket, or on the one day we took a risk because we had no change for the meter.

Finding a parking ticket on your windscreen is a frustrating experience, even if you know you’re in the wrong.

This driver even left a hastily-scrawled handwritten note pleading not to get a ticket. The driver, believed to be a student at the University of Georgia in the US, wrote: ‘Had to park here, very late for test. Please don’t ticket me.’

Source: Reddit

You can sense the desperation – ‘please’ is underlined twice, despite their politeness, the traffic warden failed to grant their request, but also if this image is to be believed failed to show any sympathy whatsoever.

A letter placed by the University of Georgia’s parking services next to the student’s note has its own handwritten message: ‘Hope you failed.’

Of course, there’s no way of knowing if it was the traffic warden who wrote ‘hope you failed’ in the image, which was posted on Reddit.

Even if the ‘warden’s message’ was staged, it just goes to show that not even a polite note will stop you from getting a ticket.

Traffic warden gives ticket to crashed taxi - Youtube video

 A video posted on YouTube shows a traffic warden ticketing the taxi cab, which had clearly been involved in an accident in Manchester city centre.

The Cabbie "Mohammed Arif" can be heard trying to reason with the unnamed warden. "I'm not speaking to you," the warden says. "The cabbie, who filmed the event on his phone, replies: "You do realise I've had an accident?"

"You're not allowed to video me, thank you," the warden says before pushing the phone away. "I asked you not to video me." She then lashes out at the man.

Things go from bad to worse as the ensuing scuffle nearly ends up with a passer-by threatening to intervene, who tells the cabbie 'not to hit a woman'.

“You tried to hit me. That’s assault, I’ve got a red mark ... I’ve got a bruise on my arm," the warden exclaims, to which Arif replies: "You do realise my vehicle is not movable. I can't move the vehicle." He then points the phone towards the clearly damaged car.

The video, which has been seen more than one million times and has divided opinion of its viewers. Some have defended the warden for doing her job, while others have accused her of being a jobsworth and for not explaining her actions.

Whichever side you are on, the traffic warden was going against Manchester council rules. A spokesperson said: “We have clear guidelines and our traffic wardens are instructed not to issue parking tickets in circumstances where motorists have been forced to park following road traffic accidents.

“In this case, a ticket clearly should not have been given and if one was issued it will not be enforced. We are now reviewing the incident along with our contractors at NSL.”

Reports say the warden has resigned from her position in the wake of the video going viral. It is unclear what caused the original crash.

Student got parking ticket after pulling over to help elderly lady lying on pavement

Image Credit Daily Echo

Drew Hollinshead from Winton was given a parking ticket as he rushed to help an old lady who had fallen over.

The 21 year old student, was driving along Wimborne Road when he noticed an elderly lady lying on the pavement in nearby Wycliffe Road and swiftly pulled over to try and help.

After getting the lady back on her feet, he returned to his car where he found a Bournemouth Council parking warden issuing a £70 fine for stopping in a disabled parking bay without a permit.

 "I went back to my car and there was a parking officer who was giving me a ticket. He must have seen what was happening and that I was helping the old lady.

"I asked him why he was still giving me the ticket and he said: 'It gives me no great satisfaction to give you this ticket'.

"Any normal person would have turned a blind eye when they saw why I had stopped as I just got out, helped this old lady to get up and went back to my car."

Drew said that he ripped the ticket up half in the heat of the moment and threw it in the bin, but later went to fetch it to show Daily Echo.

"It says that it costs £70 if paid within 28 days of the date that it was issued or £35 if paid early, within 14 days, but it's not the cost that matters, it's the principle of it. I tried to do something good and then something bad happened because of it. I stopped in the disabled bay as it was the nearest place to where the old lady was. There was space for about four cars and it was completely empty, so it wasn't like somebody was waiting to use it and I was blocking the space. Under the circumstances, I think it's ridiculous."

A spokesperson for Bournemouth Council originally told the Daily Echo that they are not able to comment on individual cases and would not give any more details.

However after the story appeared in the Echo on Monday, the council issued this statement: "Bournemouth Borough Council strongly disputes Mr Hollinshead version of events following an incident in Wycliffe Road after which the parking attendant was left distressed and shaken up.  Mr Hollinshead of course reserves the right to appeal.

"The parking ticket was issued because Mr Hollinshead’s vehicle was not displaying a valid disabled badge or clock. The notice had been printed when Mr Hollinshead returned to his vehicle.  A written log made by our Parking Attendant immediately following the incident states that Mr Hollinshead had claimed he had been in the parking bay for between 30 and 40 seconds even though the issuing of a parking ticket takes around five minutes to complete."

"Our attendant’s statement also notes that Mr Hollinshead approached the attendant several times after the ticket was issued and used very aggressive and abusive language in a personal attack directly on the warden. The attendant’s log also states that Mr Hollinshead physically threatened and assaulted the member of staff, advising him that he would “have an accident” and records that Mr Hollinshead pushed our staff member towards the road"

"The log states that the attendant then alerted nearby police resulting in a PCSO warning Mr Hollinshead about his abusive language and supporting our staff member in his actions.  Mr Hollinshead then left the scene."

"The attendant’s log records a third approach by Mr Hollinshead, during which he stated he was parking in the disabled bay because he had gone to the aid of an elderly lady and that he was only gone for two minutes.

"The attendant has recorded that he then pointed out that it takes five minutes to issue a PCN. This was the first time it is recorded that Mr Hollinshead raised the issue of assisting another person and the incident with the elderly person was not witnessed by the traffic attendant.

"The log concludes that Mr Hollinshead then drove off whilst on the phone."
Margaret Leslie, Operations Manager for Parking Services, said: "Any motorist receiving a fine can appeal against a ticket through the contact details given on their Penalty Charge Notice. We give full consideration into all individual cases and take mitigating circumstances into account."

Source

Traffic warden in trouble after ticketing wheelie bin

A traffic warden with a sense of humour is being investigated after issuing a wheelie bin with a parking ticket.

The traffic warden slap one of the dreaded yellow notices on a Biffa wheelie bin that had been left 'parked' on double yellow lines in Carmarthen in south west Wales.

Onlooker Mike Jones recounted the event to the BBC: "It was bizarre - I realised I had just watched a warden give a ticket to a wheelie bin for bad parking."

Carmarthenshire council acknowledged the whole thing was a joke, explaining there was no actual penalty charge notice inside the waterproof plastic packet, but said it would be investigating.

Counctil traffic and safety manager John McEvoy said in an interview with the BBC: "There was no ticket issued, it is not possible to book a wheelie bin or anything that is not motorised."

"Although this was meant as a humorous incident, we take this kind of thing very seriously and have launched a formal investigation into the conduct of this officer," he added.

It is unclear who was responsible for illegally parking the bin or who the parking attendant is.

 Source

Valid Parking Ticket?

The note on the windshield surrounded by parking tickets reads

"Spot the valid parking ticket

Just kidding! I accidentally left my wallet at home and am therefore unable to purchase a ticket today! ONCE IN 3 WHOLE YEARS! Please find it in your heart to forgive me and rip up that $200 fine youve written. YOURS SINCERELY , GRATEFUL STUDENT :)"

Then the parking attendant has left a note that says

"This amused me so I will let it slide for today but next time I will fine you"
there is more but it is partially obscured by a torn up ticket

Once Youve Parked... You Can Have Some Fun!