‘I’ve been fined. I’m not fine.’
Have you ever walked towards your car to find a pink slip neatly tucked into your windscreen wipers?
Getting a traffic fine sucks, but getting a traffic fine when you don’t deserve it sucks even more.
I will not mention all the other things that people should actually get fined for.
My car was neatly parked in one of the bays outside our office building on Fifth Avenue.
In this parking bay there is a tree which occupies most of the space but the space left still allows for a car to be parked.
Is that also my fault?
As on any other day, I decided to park there for the obvious reason that the tree provided good shade for my car.
It was the biggest mistake of my life – I was rewarded with a R500 ticket.
I am still trying to understand how I qualified for that.
It’s a parking bay!
I double- and triple-checked that the lines are white and whether the parking is reserved for people living with disabilities or not.
I even called one of my colleagues to help witness what I was experiencing.
And this space has been used many times before, by other drivers, but no one seems to recall any other person being fined for parking there.
So where do I go?
Who do I ask?
Or did I miss a page on my K53 workbook?
How do I challenge this?
I have called and emailed the EMPD with no response from them.
I cannot be the only one who needs to be schooled on this.
I hope not…
