$7,500 in parking fines?!

I'd NEVER park in a disabled park like THIS 'ducking from my iPhone' camera man, but
NO STOPPING has MY name ALL over it!

I stumbled across a parking fine reminder notice.

Parking fines enter my life with a frequency far greater than I care to admit in such a public forum.  One might be correct in assuming that parking fines find their way to me like a lone nail on your drive way which miraculously, undoubtedly and skilfully will navigate its way into your rear drivers side tyre like a fresh white bird shit to your newly cleaned windscreen.... it's just second nature and a prerequisite of the inner city CBD Eastern suburb lifestyle I chose.

I pride myself on being an exceptionally sensible driver (it takes skill to ALWAYS find that lone nail).

I'm a stickler for the on road rules, an over-user of my indicator, and when our lanes need to merge I'm the type of driver who is more than happy to give way to your car like a seamlessly executed Disney Main Street parade of car lights (shock horror people, if we ALL let in just ONE car, chances are 99.9999999999999% probable we're ALL going to arrive at our chosen destination at EXACTLY the same time, however should we NOT let in that one car I can pretty much guarantee 100% we're all going to arrive at out chosen destinations at EXACTLY the same time BUT with far higher blood pressure and a distaste for the world far greater than my putrid distaste for the fact there quite literally appears be bloody nowhere to park in my postcode and surrounding locale!).

.... end rant!

While I certainly have mastered the fine art of the Sydney road and the metropolitan driving experience, my skill re l'parking d'extravaganza (that's French for "where the faaark do we paaark in the faaarking city mate?") leaves an awful lot to be desired.

You see, I'm that driver who is always pulling into the NO STOPPING zone.

It's not that I don't understand the meaning of the sign.  I have a wonderful grasp of the English word and it's meaning.  English is actually my first language (it's actually my ONLY language, so I genuinely have a finer grasp of the English language than that of say, if the sign was written in Italian, or German or Chinese or...... you get the drift).

So I clearly understand NO STOPPING means: 


"thinking of stopping here darling......? well, the answer unfortunately is literally no, please don't stop here darling!"

But the problem is, while council on paper suggests that the answer should be NO, there appears to be literally no other option available to me as to where I CAN stop.  And it is because of this, and because of a number of other reasons that I am of the opinion that I shouldn't be fined for stopping here and HERE'S some of the reasons why.......

I paid for this road, so I'll stop wherever the hell I wanna stop!  

Remember when you were a kid and your parents said:

"when you pay your own rent and own your own house, then you can live by your own rules, until then while we're paying your rent and you're living in our house you'll live by OUR rules."

Well my tax dollars payed for this damn road!

I actually had to get outta bed, go to work, chase the money via invoice from my clients, allow the money time to clear in my bank account.  After which I had to ensure I didn't spend the money (that's the REALLY hard bit) and then I had to transfer the same money off to our government by their set timeline so that they could use my hard earned cash to buy us some roads.

I'm not exactly sure which roads they used my money to buy, but just like not knowing exactly which road is mine we can't be EXACTY sure which road ISN'T mine.  So there's actually a percentage possibility that the government or council has stuck a NO STOPPING sign on a road I might ACTUALLY own.... without my permission!  I could sue them over that sign for vandalism of my road.

..... but only if I actually knew which road was mine.  But I'm still looking into that.

Also.....

After I already bought some roads with my tax money, THEY have the nerve to charge me nearly $1,000 EVERY YEAR for some pretty sticker to stick on my car.

I don't really think that sticker is worth $1K (and I spend alot on shoes).  So when I enquired as to why it should be priced so extravagantly, the reply I received was that this was a tax to help fund road construction and maintenance.  Ironic really cause I thought I already paid my taxes to buy the first road.  And here they are charging me AGAIN to pay to build ANOTHER new road and to maintain the road I ALREADY paid for.

And yet they had the nerve to vandalise my first road with that NO STOPPING sign?

.... that's a bit rich!

I hear on the grapevine very soon we won't have to buy these stickers.  But they're still gonna charge me the nearly $1K?!  And I don't even get the coloured sticker?!  Random?!

Also....

My name is Adam Williams and having already mentioned my great grasp on the English language, there's a large probability I actually own William Street!

(Adam "WILLIAMS" / "WILLIAM S"treet).

If you live in Sydney you will be VERY aware of this street.  It's a VERY popular street (and if I'm not 100% sure which street is mine, there's a slight comfort in the fact I might actually own one of the more popular streets...... it's an insecurity thing.)

Now a couple of years ago, they took out a number of lanes on William St.  They say this was to allow for parking and to beautify the street with greenery.  More parking?!  How kind!

They lied.  There's about 10 new parks (10 car parks in exchange for two lanes of traffic is NOT an exciting ratio) and approximately 6 sad looking trees (a tree should never be described as sad.... unless you're THESE trees).

Rather conveniently (for some international privately owned company) at exactly the same time William St HALVED in size.... the Cross City Tunnel opened.

How lucky are we??!!  The main route to the CBD became bottlenecked and low and behold we had another way to get there (well strangely, it wasn't really another way to get there, it was a way to bypass our city COMPLETELY.... ironic really considering half our population needs to get TO the city every day.... not PASSED it!  But that's a whole other blog post!)

Unfortunately the tunnel that sorta goes nowhere cost $4.70.

But what's $4.70 between friends?

$4.70 one way = $9.40 return
$9.40 x 6 working days per week = $56.40 per week
$56.40 per week x average of 48 working weeks in a year = $2,707.20


$2,707.20 a year per person???!!!  Starting to look a bit like a tax really isn't it?  Except this tax doesn't go to our government, the rumour mill has THIS faux tax going to a man in another country.  Does this mean I own roads in another country too?

I might be an internationally acclaimed road owner.  Sorta sounds glamorous.  Like everything glamorous, glamorous is appearing VERY expensive!

Also....

If you're lucky enough to be able to get where you need to go, once you get there you gotto put money in these little machines and RENT the time you can park there!

But I might OWN this street.  Why should I rent from MYSELF?!

To be honest, I'm actually prepared to put this money in and rent these car parks cause as I've already explained, these parks are bloody hard to find......  but more often than NOT, there isn't a car park available to rent!

So I pull up in a NO STOPPING zone.

And then I get a $201 fine.

Which I am meant to pay to the magic parking God whose job it was to put the parks on the street in the first place (on the street which I might actually own).

And he DIDN'T!

He didn't put enough parks on this street, so then HE fines me $201 for not being able to find a park

CAUSE HE DIDN'T PUT ENOUGH PARKS THERE!!!!

It really makes no sense.

So when I stumbled across that parking fine reminder notice and I rang up to see if I'd missed the due date and thus whether it had increased in fee..... the automated voice told me that I could pay up to $7,500 in fines in one transaction.  How convenient for me!

I don't actually have $7,500 in unpaid fines (YET), but clearly SOMEONE does!

So that means someone else out there thinks they shouldn't have to pay their fines EITHER.

Is it you?

Agree or disagree?

Please don't make me feel like a lonely car space in a dark scary corner of an undesirable car parking station.  Please park your arse here and tell me what you really think?!