Parking sideways may not be considered very smart by most drivers, but that is what one lady did in a parking space in Stroud during Halloween last year – and ended up paying the price.
After being handed a £50 penalty notice by a local traffic warden, Mrs Price of Stroud embarked on a year-long legal battle to overturn the fine.
While parking at right-angles to the kerb might seem unorthodox to most of our breakdown recovery customers, Mrs Price's vehicle was a diminutive Mercedes Smart car. Central to her defence was the assertion that the car maker recommended the right-angle approach as a parking technique.
The traffic warden gave Mrs Price the penalty because her car had breached the parking bay lines. But the parking penalty tribunal adjudicator found that no traffic regulation had in fact been breached by the motorist.
“It was a ridiculous process and there were no winners in the end," said Mrs Price.
She added, “I didn’t continue with the case because of the money, I continued because I thought it was wrong. In fact, it cost me more than £50 to fight.”
A report on the Express website stated that Mrs Price had only parked to buy sweets for trick-or-treaters.
Despite the ruling and the return of the £50, Jim Daniels, parking manager at Gloucestershire County Council, said: “The safety of road users has to be put first so tickets will always be issued to any vehicles when it is felt that they are not parked legally or safely.”
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