🚀 go-pugleaf

Zimmy <z@y.x> writes:


>Parked in central Edinburgh the other day, didn't have change so paid by 
>mobile - very handy as car and payment details are already registered so 
>just had to type in the machine number.
>However due to some chatty people in the shop queue in front of me I got 
>back 8 minutes late, unfortunately to find a penalty charge notice 
>(which, incidentally, has the same �30 fine as if I had not bothered to 
>pay at all). Anyway, commit the crime, do the time

It wasn't a crime (or offence I suppose) in most places until a
decade or two ago, when some idiots started a campaign to "do
something" about parking in Edinburgh.
As a matter of practicality you have to accept that that's how things
are now, but if it were me I wouldn't be philosophical about it.

> - annoying that I was 
>unlucky enough to get caught at just over the time, but no big deal.
>Then I got to thinking; the Parking Warden must look up the car on his 
>portable computer as there is no ticket to stick on the windscreen when 
>you pay by mobile. Therefore, there's no real reason why said portable 
>computer can't also alert said Parking Warden to mobile-paid parking 
>times about to expire, to ensure timely ticketing before the felon returns.

>Maybe paying by mobile is not quite so handy after all or am I just a cynic?

Very handy - for the City. Not cynical enough; soon they'll introduce a
scheme to tow away your car if government computers think you haven't
obtained a TV licence / returned your library book / paid the last
parking ticket / voted for the correct party / sung 'Hail to the Chief'
when in the presence of the Lord Provost.

-- 
Windmill, TiltNot@Nonetel.com               Use  t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:-                                   @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost