Parking tickets after midnight

Stuff reports:

Unsuspecting Wellington motorists are being stung by council contractors issuing tickets in the dead of night.

New figures from Wellington City Council reveal that Wellingtonians are being ticketed at all times of the day and night. A breakdown of a year’s parking tickets shows 1403 fines were handed out between the hours of 11pm and 7am.

One person was ticketed at 3am for not having a current registration, and another for parking in a loading zone.

This makes me think it is revenue gathering. Who the hell is inconvenienced by someone being on a loading zone at 2 am?

Council spokesman Grahame Armstrong said the figures showed that people should not be complacent about parking enforcement, no matter what the time of night.

“Unfortunately, some drivers seem to think they can drive around the city after midnight and park wherever they like, without considering the impact on other people.”

Or they think there is no impact to, for example, park on a bus stop at 2 am if the last bus is at 11 pm.

Formal patrols officially finished at 11pm, so any tickets issued later than that were due to complaints.

I am slightly suspicious of that. That is around 30 complaints a week for parking after 11 pm.

I have no problem with responding to complaints from affected residents. But if they are just trawling town looking for minor infringements, I think that would be wrong.