Car Parking Charges

[martinb]

Sure, but this is all part of the culture that instinctively believes that 'public services' from parking through toilets to street lighting ought to be 'free. Everything has a cost, it's just how that cost is calculated and allocated that should be allocated, nothing else.

You should go to France more often, free car parks in the majority of towns (not cities!), public bogs that are clean and well maintained.

 

[graham]

Sure, but this is all part of the culture that instinctively believes that 'public services' from parking through toilets to street lighting ought to be 'free. Everything has a cost, it's just how that cost is calculated and allocated that should be allocated, nothing else.

You should go to France more often, free car parks in the majority of towns (not cities!), public bogs that are clean and well maintained.

I'm in France now. I own a house here & thus pay local taxes 

 

[Pitlamp]

Sure, but this is all part of the culture that instinctively believes that 'public services' from parking through toilets to street lighting ought to be 'free. Everything has a cost, it's just how that cost is calculated and allocated that should be allocated, nothing else.

You should go to France more often, free car parks in the majority of towns (not cities!), public bogs that are clean and well maintained.

I'm in France now. I own a house here & thus pay local taxes 

 

[bograt]

Can't really believe all this venom came out of an upside down parking ticket in Edale!, Derbyshire leads the field yet again!!

 

[Slug]

I then continued to Luton Airport, parked up for 30 minutes in the short stay car park which cost me ?3.60. Fair enough - airport parking is never cheap. However, if a lot of money is raised from fees, one would expect the place to be of an excellent standard. Not so! The surface looks like it hasn't been properly maintained for 20+ years, resembles a building site - I doubt any money has been spent on it for a very long time. One has to conclude that the money raised is used for something else entirely - probably all the CCTV they put up to stop people doing drop-offs on the approach roads. Gatwick short-term parking is a palace in comparison.

Peter, had you chosen to drive around the rest of Luton you'd have realised that the Airport IS a place of excellent standard...

By the way Luton Airport now charges to use the drop off/pick up point as well

The O.P. did give us a warning, not about paying to park, but about the Parking Nazi's methods of adding spurious extra charges......so, if they have them, we'd all better make sure vehicles are parked exactly dead centre of the bay making lines, with an equal margin between Tyres (which MUST be correctly aligned) and line on both sides.....
  I do wonder some times whether some places even want visitors, the way they seem to extort them so much, would suggest otherwise.

 

[mulucaver]

Whilst agreeing with much of the sentiment expressed here I still think it's not the right place to air parking grievances. Complaining here will have no effect whatsoever. I wouldn't mind betting none of the posterss sent their complaints to the local council or local MP.
There are sites dedicated to parking issues which have much more considered opinions, particularly on the legality of the charges/penalties. Supporting their efforts may well help to change things. Posting here certainly will not.

 

[Pitlamp]

Whilst agreeing with much of the sentiment expressed here I still think it's not the right place to air parking grievances. Complaining here will have no effect whatsoever. I wouldn't mind betting none of the posterss sent their complaints to the local council or local MP.
There are sites dedicated to parking issues which have much more considered opinions, particularly on the legality of the charges/penalties. Supporting their efforts may well help to change things. Posting here certainly will not.

A useful comment mulucaver, which I agree with generally (except that posting comments here at least helps encourage more people to think about how unjust this all is and might galvanise them to do something about it). I'm not aware of any forum rules which say that every contribution must be directly about caving. Otherwise there'd be no jokes area, for example. I still maintain this topic is connected with caving because cavers are frequently mucked about by such nasty pseudolegal extortions when visiting caving areas.

For Graham - somehow there seems to be something from me above which is just a quote from you - goodness knows how that happened; just ignore it.

 

[graham]

A useful comment mulucaver, which I agree with generally (except that posting comments here at least helps encourage more people to think about how unjust this all is and might galvanise them to do something about it). I'm not aware of any forum rules which say that every contribution must be directly about caving. Otherwise there'd be no jokes area, for example. I still maintain this topic is connected with caving because cavers are frequently mucked about by such nasty pseudolegal extortions when visiting caving areas.

Not just jokes, I've never seen any criticism of comment threads about pub closures, for example. Cavers don't live in a bubble where they only ever talk to other cavers about caving, surely.

For Graham - somehow there seems to be something from me above which is just a quote from you - goodness knows how that happened; just ignore it.

I never ignore any of your posts, John. 

 

[Alex]

Not just jokes, I've never seen any criticism of comment threads about pub closures, for example. Cavers don't live in a bubble where they only ever talk to other cavers about caving, surely.

I do, I don't like the above world, the sunlight hurts my eyes! Now wheres that ring gone....

 

[Peter Burgess]

Being told you can't post something on here due to some arbitrary rule is about as bad as being told where you can or can't park ....... 

 

[mulucaver]

I'm not saying you can't post anything you like on here, that's the moderator's job. I'm just saying enough has been said (and all to no avail).

 

[Peter Burgess]

Well, I am not so sure. It's made me think about the issue in a different way, thanks to the views of other posters. That's called a "fruitful debate" in my book, in that views change due to the opinions of other people.

 

[SpeleoTrog]

How this topic has continued on a caving forum is quite mystifying. However I may as well put in my opinion as well

Perhaps you should look at the board title =  "Idle Chat general chat about anything"

Doesn't say anything about topics being restricted to caving. If it bothers you that much, you could always just ignore the threads that are not related to caving.
I don't know if you've visited a caving club common room recently, but you might be shocked to know that cavers do talk about other topics from time to time!

 

[Oceanrower]

How this topic has continued on a caving forum is quite mystifying.

You really wouldn't last long on UKClimbing then!

 

[paul]

How this topic has continued on a caving forum is quite mystifying. However I may as well put in my opinion as well

Perhaps you should look at the board title =  "Idle Chat general chat about anything"

Doesn't say anything about topics being restricted to caving. If it bothers you that much, you could always just ignore the threads that are not related to caving.
I don't know if you've visited a caving club common room recently, but you might be shocked to know that cavers do talk about other topics from time to time!

Well originally the topic was posted in the "Derbyshire" section relating a warning about parking in the Edale car park and getting fined for displaying a "pay and display" ticket upsidedown. The OP did point our there was no need for further discussion, so all the following posts about parking charges were split off and moved to the "Idle Chat" section.

 

[TheBitterEnd]

I find these diversions (but not necessarily this one) often amusing and I'm sure they contribute a lot to keeping the forum active and worth visiting frequently. I use a few other forums and some are very much always on topic and have a lot of short threads, others are mainly off topic and whilst amusing have a lot of rubbish to wade through.

As someone once said of usenet but now fits web fora very well

Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it

 

[bograt]