THE REAL WORLD The LawofUnintended Consequences BY JOLYON PORTER F


UNNY THING THE LAW OF UNIN- tended consequences...you know, when something completely unexpected occurs after you do something that seems like a good idea at the time. Like putting wash-


ing powder for a top loader into a front loader and end- ing up with a frothy mess all over the laundry. Or fill- ing out a competition entry only to receive heaps of junkmail.


Worse still, is a getting personalised numbers plate reading


‘MISSING’as a bit of a joke.Then receiving an avalanche of out- standing parking fines because that is what officers of some authorities enter on parking infringements for illegally parked cars not displaying plates. This is a legitimate, but not isolated case.Other personalised


headaches have been ‘NOTAG’and ‘NOPLATE’.The owners of these plates have received dozens and in some cases hundreds of notices for outstanding fines that have been sitting in the system of variousmunicipalities just waiting for an address hit. The poor bloke with ‘MISSING’ actually received over


2,500 notices, until the DMV in California requested the officers to record ‘NONE’ for un- plated vehicles. Pity the driver who had that plate! Mind you,


this


parking offences to their names totalling in excess of $484,850 in owed fees. Some of the other offences they owe penalties for include DUI, traffic offences, licence and registration offences and dog control offences. The really crazy thing about these offenders is that they been


permitted to let their ‘bills’ get to this ridiculous proportion!As these are mostly court-imposed fees, why haven’t they been clamped down on by now? It’s not as if they have racked these up in the last fewdays, theymust have been at it formonths, perhaps even years. Adelaide is not alone in this sort of official laxness.Almost


daily there are reports in newspapers from around the world of similar cases – huge amounts of outstanding penalties owed to cities and councils that should have been cleared up long ago. So, what is the problem? Usually it is softness of behalf of


legislators. They are afraid of coming down on the dissenters in case of adverse publicity.You knowthe type, newspaper and ‘cur- rent affairs’programmes about howsome poor so and so is being hard done by the big nasty government boogy men with no hearts. Now those same journos are giving the authorities a hard time for being soft!A case of “damned if they do and damned if they don’t”, I suppose.


In a couple of the


should never really have happened. What is the point in issuing a ticket to a vehicle without any identifying data? How in the heck do they think they are going to track down the driver? Or do they think that the driver will have an attack of the guilts and pay it anyway? Other cases of backfire plates are ‘VOID’, ‘UNKNOWN’


I have seen some other plates that just seemto be begging for a hassle, such as ‘STOLEN’, ‘ILLEGAL’, ‘SPEEDER’, ‘LAWBRKR’ and so on. I just can’t see the sense in itmyself.


and ‘XXXXXXX’, all ofwhich have had similar nightmareswith notices for unpaid infringements. I have seen some other plates that just seem to be begging


for a hassle, such as ‘STOLEN’, ‘ILLEGAL’, ‘SPEEDER’, ‘LAWBRKR’ and so on. I just can’t see the sense in itmyself. Meanwhile in the city of Adelaide, South Australia, one


female driver is doing her best to become theworlds greatest PIN collector. According to a recent newspaper article, she has $114,000 in outstanding parking fines, and building. According to the article, after a freedom of information


request, it was revealed the 37-year-old unidentified woman had 360 outstanding parking tickets and now ranks as South Aus- tralia’s most flagrant fine evader, heading a list of offenders who owe the state $205million in unpaid fines. It is reported that the states registrar of motor vehicles has


suspended her license and restricted business with her until she comes to the party over her outstanding debts. The top twelve offenders have a sum of 3,152 outstanding


JUNE 2010 • PARKING WORLD • www.parkingworld.com


worst cases above, the culprits are apparently hard to find, but with all the modern technology available I find that hard to believe. Particularly as they are still accumulat- ing PINS. I knowfor a fact that


a number of the local councils either do, or have the ability to, run Hot Sheets on their


devices that would instantly alert the Officer that they are about to report the car of a ‘wanted desperado’.Asimple telephone call to the court Sheriffs could then have them under control and on payment agreements in short time. This is now happening in many places in the U.S., with


clamping and towing of offenders for having as few as a dozen outstanding tickets. One city even suggested doing this for hav- ing three unpaid tickets! Now that is definitely taking it a bit too far. But fair is fair, and letting recalcitrants get away with flout-


ing the rules and ignoring the mores of the community only makes the socially responsible angry and begin to wonder why they shouldn’t do the same. It probably won’t lead to revolution, but annoyed discontent is quite plausible. It’s time the culprits were brought back into the real world.


PW Editor Jolyon Porter can be reached at jolyon@parkingworld.com


PW 5


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