Fight them to the bitter end - how far would YOU go? (Long and OT but please read)

[Victor]

First off, sorry for posting this in the 911 Tech Forum. I have found the issue below really entertaining and figured that with well over 1000 posts, I am due to have one shoved into the OT forum. Moderators, feel free to send this there as soon as you see this.

Hey - it's Friday.

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So I open the mail a couple of weeks ago to discover a parking infringement notice ($100) for allegedly parking in a no standing zone in front of the local convenience store at 9:50AM on a Sunday morning. I must have been buying bacon, eggs, milk or possibly - baguettes.

You are now asking yourself what's so wrong or unusual with this picture. So here's the drum:

Being the inquisitive type, I call the number listed on the fine and ask the call centre operator why there was no infringement notice stuck to the windscreen of my car (this is the norm in most civilised countries in the world) and on what evidence they are basing their allegations. She is informed that they have a photo of my car. I ask whether I can access this image of the alleged crime.

She says "I don't think so - I need to check with my supervisor if we need to show you the picture or not". It turns out that the local council has outsourced the administration of parking infringements to a private company. After a bit of digging I find out they can't find the photo. Apparently "IT" are having difficulty retrieving the image from the archival system.

Now, I am not a terribly aggressive person - but hearing this made me leap out of my comfortable, leather clad office chair. I gather my emotions, loosen the top button on my shirt and thank the call centre operator for it's understanding and hang up the phone.

I smell a rat and start thinking. Surely, this sort of thing cannot happen in a modern society governed by excessive undertones of political correctness, freakish public liability law suits and mind boggling privacy laws. I call the local council responsible for issuing the fine and ask to speak their privacy officer as a way of finding out where my image may be located and who may have access to it. I get put through to the IT manager who flippantly informs me that some sort of new system has been put in place and "this new system should not have been unleashed on the general public without satisfactory results of a detailed impact study".

Now, I do not recall blowtorching the man's toes to get a confession. He just came out and said that on his own accord. Perhaps he too had some reason to want to blow up his grey cubicle.

At this stage, I am convinced that there are more fun ways of spending $100. And then, there is the little niggling issue of principle.

So I ask to speak with the person(s) in charge of local laws for a "please explain". I get put through to a disgruntled sounding individual who sounds like a cross between the toxic avenger and the last person you got ripped off by buying a used car. I politely explain the above scenario and ask him to please furnish me with a copy of the photo. Further to this, I inquire as to who the f*ck they think they are taking happy snaps of people picking up bagels on the f*cking weekend. He starts banging on about the store owner who apparently assaulted the parking officer for stalking / victimising his customers. Seems this is having an adverse effect on the sale of kosher meats. I inform the toxic avenger that this is a matter for the police - and not me. I may have an authoritative and commanding tone, but there are some things best left to the boys in blue.

To my astonishment, the photo arrives in the mail three days later.

Apprehensively, I open the envelope - secretly hoping that the picture does not make my arse look fat. Sure enough, there is a photo of a grey hatch positioned in a no standing zone behind a white delivery van. (Porsche content: my daily driver is a 3.2 Carrera I have a VW Golf used by the good lady wife for shopping / taking kid to school duties).

Now there are several things wrong with this picture:

- The photo is blurry
- It has been taken from the other side of a major road without zoom
- You can't distinguish the license plate (it's about 2mm long in the photo)
- You can't tell that either "my" car and the delivery van are stationary
- The photo is not date and time stamped
- There are about 10,000 identical cars in the area

I call back the toxic avenger (let's call him "Stanley" to protect the incapable) in charge of local council laws and explain the above in a simplified language he can understand. He proceeds to inform me that there are three legitimate methods for the serving and enforcement of parking infringements.

1. A ticket affixed to the front windscreen at the time of the offence (I have had many of these and always cheerfully paid them well within the "due by" date"
2. A photo of the alleged offence
3. The "say-so" of a parking officer

Now, most people will buy point 1. Point 2 is strange, but confronted with satisfactory evidence most law abiders will readily buckle to authority and fork out the greenbacks. But the mere suggestion that the "say-so" of a parking officer is sufficient evidence of illegal activity would be interpreted by anyone with an iota of self respect as a perverse miscarriage of justice.

I ask "Stanley" to provide me with a copy of the governing legislation that sets the guidelines for the above three points. He tells me to go to the local library and look it up.

Library?

Many decades ago a pop culture icon known as "The Fonz" was implicated in a government backed attempt at making libraries popular with the little kiddies. According to legend, he did this by taking out a library membership during an episode of a little known TV show called "Happy days". Some of you may remember this. According to US government statistics, this transparent ploy worked on 400,000 unsuspecting prepubescents who immediately all rushed off and joined the local library.

I was born in 1970 and therefore spared from this misery. (The TV show AND hanging with geeks at the library). But I digress.

So I get back on the phone and call "VicRoads" - the state government department in charge of ANYTHING to do with our streets. According to the web site "VicRoads serves the community by managing the Victorian road network and its use as an integral part of the overall transport system. VicRoads works to achieve improved access, safety and mobility for Victoria's road users." Oh yeah! Now there is a mission statement for the average man.

Almost makes me want to be a part of their vision.

Back to the matter at hand I am due to hear back from the anorak wearing woolly vest clad TWIRP in charge of public access to the appropriate legislation on Monday.

I am at odds with the concept that in this modern day and age parking officers are empowered to the telepathic issuing of fines.

Thank you for reading. I will let you know what happens whether you give a crap or not. I just needed somewhere to vent. Thank you Mr Pelican for providing a potential candidate for a leading role in "Falling Down II" the opportunity to let off a bit of steam in a (relatively) consequence free environment.

[Mark sP]

Fight them. Fight them with all your worth.

We have the same kinds of BS over here, but I won't go into that now. The problem IMO lies with the fact that more and more 'official' tasks are being farmed out to private companies who have targets and quotas to meet and who usually employ shall we say 'unsavoury' characters to carry out their dastardly deeds.

More and more often I find myself looking back into the depths of my memories and remembering with fondness, my experiences with the old fashioned style Traffic Wardens! How can this be? It just goes to show that we don't realise what we have until we have lost it.

What's next? Robo Cop for real? Any self respecting society should rise up and take arms against a system that allows people to be prosecuted by machines. (I refer here specifically to the likes of automatic photographing equipment aka speed camaras etc).

Must stop now or I'll end up hijacking your excellent thread.

[jluetjen]

Thank-you Victor in Victoria!

Certainly one of the most entertaining (and well written) OT posts I have read in a long time.

Good Luck and hopefully you won't get...

[Thomas Owen]

Victor,
I don't know when I have had such an interesting start to a Friday...at least you have maintained a sense of humor:

the anorak wearing woolly vest clad TWIRP in charge of public access to the appropriate legislation

Being a man of principle myself, I say "Stay with it".
Good luck, and keep us posted.
Regards,

Heh heh heh. I love it when them desk popes get to sweat a little.

[sammyg2]

Please don't take offense but you asked for opinions, here's mine:

Was your car parked in a place that was marked as no parking?
If not, fight it.
If so, it doesn't matter what the picture looks like. it doesn't matter who took the picture. it doesn't matter is it was a weekend. it doesn't matter how messed up the computer system is.
if you did something wrong, you should fess us and pay the fine.
Forget about if they can prove it or if you can get away with it.

Accountability has nothing to do with how you got caught or what they can prove.

[Victor]

Thanks everyone for the feedback and encouragement thus far.

Dr. Sam, thank you for your opinion. Naturally enough, no offense taken. Are you a parking officer or someone who fits the profile of a cast member of the above story other than "The Fonz" or myself?

Seriously man, I do not (and neither does the wife or anyone else that may have access to the beater) have memories of parking illegally that day.

And I am sure you agree that we are all fortunate to live in countries in which we are innocent untill proven guilty.

There is no evidence of guilt.

Local councils and government institutions hell bent on raising revenues will be held accountable!

FREEEEEDOM!!!!

[onewhippedpuppy]

Fight it until your last breath. To the death I say, and let the best man/ government authority win! Great post, nothing wrong with making those folks actually work for a change.

[onewhippedpuppy]

WALLACE, WALLACE, WALLACE!

[Victor]

One more thing:

I will demand that they retreat back to the place they came from and personally apologise to every man, woman and child they pass on the way there for 200 years of opression and misery.

[sammyg2]

LOL, no I'm not in law enforcement or even a meter maid. If you don't think you did anything wrong then you should fight with all your might just on principle alone. Good luck.

[dickster]

go for 'em. i always do just for the heck of it.

if you gotta pay a fine, make 'em work for it!!

good luck.

[47silver]

it is another form of taxation. but you cannot fight it as you cannot win,,,,because the irony of it all is that you are using your money to fight yourself (your taxes) and since it is not their money they can continue the fight indefinetly or until you go broke. the problem is that the politicians are afraid and will not raise taxes directly yet they want the revenue so they impose these intrusive methods of garnering revenue (speed cameras, loitering cameras?, etc) and pass them off as safety measures....the video and camera salespeople talk revenue enhancement on even par with safety, no offense to anyone.
imho

gary

[sundaypunch]

I'm a very simple person and this seems pretty straightforward. Pay it if you parked illegally. Most people know when they do this. If you didn't, fight the ticket.

[Rick Lee]

"We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France. We shall fight on the seas and oceans. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island whatever the cost. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender."

Guess how I vote. I read this every time I think about actually paying a traffic fine. Then I go to court.

[Scooter]

I completely understand Sam's point above. If you do wrong, then you should pay (normally). What we are talking about here is not your wrong, but the wrong of the local government. It sounds like someone had a great idea to fill the fiscal coffer, and then implemented the plan without going through the proper channels. If you fight the ticket and go in front of a judge, I think it is likely the ticket will be dismissed summarily, based on either lack of substantive evidence (i.e., blurry picture and lack of proof the vehicle was stationary) or the procedural discrepancies that appear to be present. I believe it is a valid fight, if the fight is against a corrupt and/or iniquitous system.

[targa911man]

As long as the general public tolerates the big brother traffic enforcement methods currently in vogue in the US and obviously elsewhere, it's going to get more pervasive. I doubt anyone on this board would dispute that the vast majority of traffic enforcement is done to raise revenue and not to protect the public. These big brother methods are just an extreme example of the enforcement philosophy. I get sick of hearing people say "If you did it, then pay." This is just acquiescing to government control of your life and, IMHO is an un-American attitude. Ironically, though, given where are cars are made, it goes right along with that sheep-like attitude popular in WWII Germany, "I was just following orders." Just because we drive German cars doesn't mean we have to adopt their mentality vis-a-vis unquestioningly (and in many cases irrationaly) following the law. Don't let the government make up you're mind for you. I'm heading out of town for a couple of days so won't be able to respond to responsive flames until Monday. Everybody have a good weekend!

[Rick Lee]

Right on Dan! Maybe you didn't notice that the starter of this thread is not an American, though his actions certainly are. Fight, fight, fight!!! Your rights are like your teeth - ignore them and they will go away.

[911Rob]

Great Story Victor, you should be a writer.

I usually respect 'no parking' zones, as they're there for a reason, especially HC zones. You should request the store owner to provide a parking lot? Of course, here in Canada where land is bountiful, every store has one.

Cheers and Good Luck with your $100

[HarryD]

While I am not familiar with the laws "down under", I suspect they are similar to our here in the states. The justice system, at least to my simple mind, is based on the concept of INNOCENT until proven guilty. If you allow them to use poor or shoddy evidence now, how can you be sure "they" will not "create" evidence for some more serious charge. The burden of proof is on those enforcing the law, not those charged with the act. To have it the other way is to have a suppressive govenment and we know where that takes you.

Push back.

Demand proof positive.

IMHO a fuzzy picture of some car (not clearly yours) is not proof positive , it's just a picture of some car. They need to show it was your car.

I have been told, since you are allowed to go before a judge on all enforcement activites, even if you are guilty, you should go to ensure you take benefit of any and all aspects fo the law. You can state you feel you are not guilty and let them prove otherwise. That is their job. The use of sloppy work is not acceptable and should not be tolerated.

Once you win, I would also contact your locally elected officials to let them know about these heavy handed enforcement activities and remind them how they keep their job (i. e. staying in the good graces of the electorate). Contacting a local newpaer about this may be another tack if the politican seems to not understand who serves who.

As several others state, freedom needs to be defended at all times, for reasons large and small. Failure to do so, ultimately results in the loss of freedom for all.

Fight the good fight. Good luck.