Anyone in Wellington got off a parking ticket?

[pieman]

Hi everyone,

On Friday I came back to my bike parked on the Lambton Quay bike park to find $200 worth of tickets, $200 for expired wof and $200 for either expired rego or they didn't look hard enough for it. I just comepletely overlooked both having been expired, went down 1st thing the next day and renewed both.

SO I'm guilty I know that I just didn't check the dates, I see looking on the interwebs that some other local councils allow 28 days to show you've got your wof and reg and they waive the tickets. $400 is a hell of a lot to get stung for!!!

Has anyone had any experience in this issue, I see lots of post from Akl about similar issues, but gather each council will have ther own rules, WCC has nothing on the matter on its website.

Appreciate any advice.

Thanks in advance
q

[Trudes]

I had a jolly good e-mail fight with the wankers at Wilson Parking who ticketed my car while I was parked at the hospital. Aparantly I was 10 minutes over my time.... not that I ever recieved an actual ticket, first I heard of it was when I got a reminder that I had 21 days to pay it before they started charging me an extra $20 or something. So when I disputed it they had my number plate registered to a car that I don't and never have owned (personalised plate... they swapped an 0 for an O) when I queried that they then did what any dumbfuck can do and did a plate search and came up with our vehicle.... except that at the time the ticket was issued we hadn't bought that vehicle yet. So anyway I sent them e-mail messages every day for a month about this shit, they stopped replying to me and I figured I might as well just pay their stinking $40 ticket before it went up to $60 and I still got made to jump through hoops and get no explanation from them as to why they are such dumbarses who can't get a vehicle's registration details correct. Must be all the canibalism they do down there.
Anyway...... good luck with that.

[James Deuce]

Ummm, that's not a parking ticket.

All you can do is write in with proof that you sorted it the next day and see if they'll let you off.

You could request a court hearing, but if you lose (and you probably will) you'll have court costs added to the bill.

Trudes: That one would have gone to court, all the proof supported your case and the Judge would have spanked the ticketing agency HARD. WCC got fined $15000 for forcing my wife through two court cases after ticketing a car in Tory St and getting the rego wrong. The ticket was issued before she moved to Wellington, and she had proof that the car was in the Auckland Hospital staff carpark at the time it was supposed to be in Tory St.

If you have a valid reason for getting off a ticket you will.

[Max Preload]

I had a jolly good e-mail fight with the wankers at Wilson Parking who ticketed my car while I was parked at the hospital. Aparantly I was 10 minutes over my time.... not that I ever recieved an actual ticket, first I heard of it was when I got a reminder that I had 21 days to pay it before they started charging me an extra $20 or something. So when I disputed it they had my number plate registered to a car that I don't and never have owned (personalised plate... they swapped an 0 for an O) when I queried that they then did what any dumbfuck can do and did a plate search and came up with our vehicle.... except that at the time the ticket was issued we hadn't bought that vehicle yet. So anyway I sent them e-mail messages every day for a month about this shit, they stopped replying to me and I figured I might as well just pay their stinking $40 ticket before it went up to $60 and I still got made to jump through hoops and get no explanation from them as to why they are such dumbarses who can't get a vehicle's registration details correct. Must be all the canibalism they do down there.
Anyway...... good luck with that.

If it was Wilson Parking you shouldn't have paid. They don't have the power to fine you but they make their "infringement notice" look suspiciously like the real thing to try and intimidate you into paying stupid amounts of money for miniscule breaches. All they did was INVOICE you and you can dispute the amount and offer to settle on a pro-rata basis for their loss of income for you continuing to park in the spot after the time you had paid for had passed. They can *TRY* and lodge it for collection but you just dispute that too and it has no bearing on your credit rating. Add that to the fact you didn't even own the car at the time and they don't have a leg to stand on.

I'd fight it all the way, but I'm a cunt like that - I don't let these fuckers bully me - I just get informed.

[Max Preload]

On Friday I came back to my bike parked on the Lambton Quay bike park to find $200 worth of tickets, $200 for expired wof and $200 for either expired rego or they didn't look hard enough for it. I just completely overlooked both having been expired, went down 1st thing the next day and renewed both.

What? They didn't look hard enough or it was expired?

I have grave concerns for the future of mankind, not for any natural or man-invented catastrophe like anthropogenic global warming or cooling (whatever it is, week by week), but simply the inability for people to even fucking well communicate coherently.

[pieman]

My Reg had expired, it expired at the same time as the wof, but the wording on the ticket says:

"Using a vehicle while not displaying a current licence label in the manner required"

So it was expired but that wording on the ticket indicates that the guy couldn't see it, it was on the swing arm like alot of bikes, and how I brought it.

Were you taking the piss? or interested in helping?

Thanks
q

[Max Preload]

My Reg had expired, it expired at the same time as the wof, but the wording on the ticket says:

"Using a vehicle while not displaying a current licence label in the manner required"

So it was expired but that wording on the ticket indicates that the guy couldn't see it, it was on the swing arm like alot of bikes, and how I brought it.

Were you taking the piss? or interested in helping?

Thanks
q

A bit of both. What about the wording of the WoF one?

Write to them asking for the specific regulation that prescribes the manner of placement of the licence label on a motorcycle, enclosing a picture of it's position from a distance so they can't actually make out it's a new one. They won't be able to because it doesn't exist. Make no mention of the fact that it was expired - they won't check - they work at the council because they're lazy and not pro-active so that's the only place that will have them.

Naturally, they'll refuse your explanation anyway with bullshit like "Having given consideration to all the circumstances we have decided that the infringement offence notice still stands. As such you are required to pay within 28-days". Then write back requesting a hearing. If you word it right, they'll drop it because they know they won't win, although the actual chances of you doing that, given your first post, are quite slim.

[jaykay]

As Max preload says a Wilson Parking ticket is an unenforcorceable invoice and they NEVER need paying.

As for the WCC tickets, I would almost guarantee the Reminder Notice will be prejudicial and invalid. Wait until you receive them and check if they have given you 28 days from the date you get them to either pay or request a hearing. If they have only given you 28 days from the date they sent them then they are meaningless.

However they can't be ignored - reply thus: "Until your purported Reminder Notice for alleged offence xxxxxxxx complies with the Summary Proceedings Act 1957:- A hearing is requested".

Post back when you have some sort of response from the council.

[jaykay]

Thought I'd reactivate this thread rather than start a new one - as it has come to pass that the CCC have (finally) decided to take me to court. The big day out is the 20th of this month.

The alleged offence is not displaying a valid pay and display ticket - the problem is that the Reminder Notice is defective - put simply the time they are allowing for payment of the infringment fee is LESS than the law states, and the council can't write it's own laws. Hence the process is outside the law and meaningless.

If the council loses in court, they have a problem (a big problem as they are pulling in $8,000,000 a year in fines) - if they win then they have a problem, as I will appeal to the High Court (which will cost them considerably more than the $40).

As luck would have it an aquaintance is working as a PA in Christchurch, and says that my name is being used by the council in training manuals and lectures to emphasise that they must get their paperwork correct, because on the last couple of occasions in court I've had to pay $42 (in total), they have had to pay a few thousand. Perhaps they have decided it is better to take me to court as they will get their defective paperwork sorted (by me) for free, as the various lawyers they employ seem unable to perform this basic task.

PS Wilson Parking and other similar tickets are still unenforceable and uncollectable, ignore them. They are an unsolicited invoice which can be safely filed in the bin - you will not be taken to court and it will not affect your credit rating.

[Berries]

Did you have a valid ticket when you got booked ?

I have always wondered why bikes use pay and display parking. Obviously there is nowhere safe to stick the ticket so there is a good chance you'll get booked. Maybe it's a Dunedin thing, there are that many places you can park a bike in town without paying I am just always surprised when I see a bike taking up a car space when there is free bike parking less than a block away.

[Hawkeye]

In Wellington, they passed a by-law specifically excluding the use of pay and display parks by bikes unless it is a single machine per bay (Which I don't know of any in Welly)

[Ratti]

In Wellington, they passed a by-law specifically excluding the use of pay and display parks by bikes unless it is a single machine per bay (Which I don't know of any in Welly)

Does this mean that I can park in a PnD car spot and not have to pay?

[Jon Visser]

Does this mean that I can park in a PnD car spot and not have to pay?

No - the Bylaw (see 6.5 of http://wellington.govt.nz/plans/bylaws/traffic.html) states that motorcycles may not use P&D spaces at all.

[Broomrider]

The alleged offence is not displaying a valid pay and display ticket -

This is the offence you can fight, there is no where on a bike you can safely put a pay and display ticket. You got one it was blown away in the wind or it was stolen...CCC do not supply us with enough/any motorcycle parks in the city and if they do they are few and far between, I have seen one of late and that is in Rangiora... so tell the judge you paid but it went missing, and that almost all streets in CHCH CBD are pay and display so what choice do you have....

the problem is that the Reminder Notice is defective - put simply the time they are allowing for payment of the infringment fee is LESS than the law states, and the council can't write it's own laws. Hence the process is outside the law and meaningless.

The reminder notice is secondary and if the judge says to you..." did you park there? did you get the original ticket? ... if you answer yes, he can tell you that you did receive notice and you were aware of the fine... case closed if he wants to be a pedantic bastard.

Unless you can produce proof that the CCC are using your case for training to emphasise that they must get their paperwork correct, therefore proving that CCC did stuff up, this will be dimissed as hearsay.

[jaykay]

Interesting articles in the Dom Post and The Press over the weekend concerning the parking tickets and quotas. Purely by coincidence I asked a Christchurch Parking attendant a couple of questions whilst he was on the witness stand last week. 1 - Do you have a quota for writing tickets? No. 2. Do you have a performance target? after some interjections by the JPs and prosecutor the eventual answer was again No. According to the newspaper articles these answers were not correct. Watch this space for what could become interesting.........

However the point of this post is to alert everyone to these facts. It takes literally months for a disputed ticket to end up in court, and the Dom post article says the average time as a Parking Attendant in Wellington is only a year - and the Parking Attendant HAS to be in court to give evidence - if he is no longer a Parking Attendant the prosecution will fail. Dispute a ticket the correct way, and the chances are you'll never have to pay.