Kildare man pays for parking, gets fined

A motorist has urged other drivers to be vigilant after he paid for parking but mistakenly displayed a receipt, then received a penalty notice.

On 12 June, Mike Melton from Martinstown parked on Henry Street in Newbridge for a dentist appointment. He explained that he paid and took a ticket from the machine and went on to display said ticket in the window. Returning to his car after his appointment, he was surprised to see a parking fine on the window.

On inspecting both penalty notice and ticket, it became apparent what he had taken from the machine was in fact a receipt for the person using the machine before him.

“I put a 50c in and two 20c into the machine and I think I did what everybody does, they look at the screen on the ticket machine, they look at the amount of time allocated to the ticket, and when you've got enough you press for your ticket,” he said. “I did exactly that and I took a ticket from the machine, I didn't even look at the ticket – I had no reason to, I'd been looking at the screen on the ticket machine. Grabbed the ticket, went to my car, placed it on the dashboard and off I went to my appointment.” 

When he returned, there was a yellow ticket on the windscreen informing him of a pay and display parking offence. “And that's when I looked at the ticket and I realised that actually what I had was a receipt, because somebody had used the machine before me and paid by card,” he said.

Mike kept hold of the sales receipt and explained the situation to the council, that this was a genuine mistake. “They rejected both appeals,” he told me. “So then I called the council and I explained what happened, the lady on the phone seemed a bit more sympathetic, and she said look, you can only have two appeals, so my recommendation is that you just let it run its course and go to court with it. So, I agreed to do that.” 

On Friday 30 August Mike received a letter from their solicitors and the following Monday spoke to someone there who he said told him he should “go back to the council and appeal again because you get three appeals” – he challenged this and said the council had advised him that he only had two appeals.

Mike’s argument is that on the reverse, a parking ticket and a sales receipt look identical – the receipt even includes the text 'This pay and display ticket may only be used in a pay parking zone'.

“Anybody else in a similar position to myself that is maybe not going to inspect the ticket could grab a receipt and easily mistake it for a ticket,” he said.

Mike parks up in Blackrock for work where there’s a physical difference between a ticket and a receipt – “there’s no way of mistaking them.” He conceded that “if you look on the normal side of those ticket and receipts, they are clear. One says 'CARD SALES RECEIPT NOT A PARKING TICKET'. But who inspects the ticket when they've made sure that they've put enough time on the machine before pressing the green button?” 

A spokesperson for Kildare Co Council said the local authority investigated the case and “can confirm that the appeal was dealt with in accordance with the polices of Kildare Co Council and, in particular, in accordance with Kildare Co Council’s Parking Fines Appeals and Nominations Policy, details of which were advised to the customer in correspondence.” They confirmed that in accordance with council procedures, two appeals can be made against a fine.

“Kildare Co Council are not in a position to comment on conversations between third parties,” they added.