(Fri 17 Feb 06)

AppealNow.com has announced the results of its third annual Craziest Parking Tickets Awards, and the top prize goes to Westminster Council for issuing tickets to the Thames whale rescuers. As reported yesterday, Westminster has a policy of cracking down on parking offenders, but someone was a bit too keen on this occasion, since the rescuers had been given police permission to park where they did.

Close behind in the honours list is the attendant who works for contractor Vinci Park, for slapping a ticket on the van owned by plastic window repair man Stewart Massey. Mr Massey was visiting a hospital, and - being a visitor - parked in the visitor's car park. But the name of his business, which is written on the side of the van, is Plastic Surgeon, and the attendant told him that "you are a plastic surgeon - you should be in the staff car parking area". "If I was a plastic surgeon," Mr Massey said later, "I'd be driving a Ferrari, not an old van!"

There are many similar stories in this year's award list, several relating to disabled badges being mounted upside down or partially obscured (in one case by a windscreen wiper, which shouldn't have been too difficult to negotiate). And there are, as there seem to be every year, cases of mourners leaving a funeral service to find that they have been heartlessly ticketed.

The one we like best, though, concerns the driving instructor whose pupil stalled during a three-point turn. In what must been a case of ruthless efficiency, a parking attendant managed to slap a ticket on the car before the pupil was able to restart the engine.

The full list can be found at www.appealnow.com.

16/02/06 News: Sex And Parking In Westminster

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