Parking Inspectors Have Lost The Plot

By Dan Hutton on November 1, 2012 in News

It’s been a while since I penned a piece about parking inspectors but an incident that took place last month left me with little choice.

Having popped up to Bondi one weekday afternoon for a few waves, I returned home at about 5pm, swinging via Bronte to drop off a mate and his surfboard. Given that the lucky bastard lives just across the road from the beach and it was a quiet afternoon, I pulled in across the driveway that leads into the Bronte Cutting car park.

As my mate jumped out and opened the boot, I noticed a parking ranger’s vehicle appear from thin air and swiftly pull up behind us. Before I could tell my mate to hurry up and get his board out, the ranger in the driver’s seat had plucked her camera from the centre console and was firing off photos.

I had pulled over for literally thirty seconds, was still sitting in the driver’s seat with the engine running, and I got stung.

So I did what every red-blooded male who’d clearly been caught doing the wrong thing would do: I turned my car around, drove into the Bronte Gully car park and pursued the offending ticket issuer, determined that if this woman was going to issue me a fine she’d have to realise that I took issue with the way it was carried out.

I pulled up beside her, wound down the window and asked if I’d just been fined. She looked at me with a smug head, and in her European (or possibly South American) accent confirmed with glee that a $234 bill would be on its way to my mailbox. Yep, $234 for my thirty second misdemeanour.

As my fury boiled inside I struggled to resist the urge to get out of my car and deliver 234 swift jabs into her stupid, smug-looking face (of course I do not condone violence towards men, let alone the fairer sex). She could obviously see my anger, frustration and possibly the violent thoughts running through my mind as I reached towards the door handle before thinking better of it, and she simultaneously wound up the window of her vehicle at rapid pace and locked the door. With that, I sped off.

I must note that I realise what I did was technically wrong, but for the love of god, did it really deserve at $234 fine? And what’s with these parking inspectors stalking their prey and taking joy in issuing fines? If this sort of behaviour continues, I wouldn’t be too surprised if a parking inspector gets seriously hurt.