Abisola Fatokun

We’re late to the wedding reception. It’s a typical Saturday afternoon and the rain chooses to add something different to the mix. Typically. This time round we’ve roused ourselves to go to a friend’s wedding in London and we’re on the Barnet high street looking for a place to park.

Surprisingly, we find quite a few spaces and I manage to slot my car into one of them with relative ease. “I’ve got to pay for parking,” I thought to myself. That was when the nightmare started.From one parking meter to the next. And the next, and the next. After a few minutes, there was a contingent of us trooping from one parking meter to the other in search one a single one that would serve to issue tickets.

Problem was that the meter either ‘ate’ our coins without returning any ticket or would absolutely refuse to come on. We gave up eventually and were resolved to driving to park at the nearest train station as we’d been told there was parking there. On our way back to our cars, we discovered that the other cars that had parked along the high street had encountered difficulty paying as well and the drivers had all stuck notes on their dashboards with various messages for the the Barnet traffic warden making the rounds.

“parking meter not working”
“Meter ‘ate’ my coins”
“parking meter bad. Tried calling the number on the side but no one picked up”

Even though the drivers of these vehicles knew that the general rule is that non-functional parking meters were not an excuse for not paying to park, this particular situation was exceptional and they decided to dare the authorities and see if their bluff would be called. I elected to do the same and wrote a most elaborate note, which I stuck on my dashboard.

I was not issued a parking ticket. Thankfully. That would have been a nuisance as I was a bit short of cash during that period.

In case you are wondering why the parking meters were not working, I discovered that they were all solar powered and a combination of a succession of gloomy days and almost endless rain meant that the meters could not be charged and there clearly was no backup power supply for these things. This made me wonder why – in this country where we hardly get sufficient sunlight – someone would elect to install solar powered traffic meters. Its almost as though the council has determined that revenue collection is secondary to its ‘green’ credentials.

It’s a strange one and I would love to know why and how the council came to the decision to install these machines. I’d also love to find out how much revenue has been lost as a result of these faulty pay machines and how much council tax would have to rise to offset these losses.

Thank goodness my local council doesn’t use these machines as I’d rather the peace of mind of having paid to park than the mental torment of wondering if a ticket has been issued to me.

We had fun at the wedding reception, though and were absolutely chuffed for my friend who was getting married.