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Parking Tickets

Chris75Chris75
in Community Forum 🏠

 Be thankful you don't live in Hong Kong when it comes to challenging parking tickets....

So back in April I get a parking ticket that I think is wrong.  It says I have parked in contravention of a no parking sign.  Well there aren't any no parking signs on the street.  In fact that street is always full of parked cars.  So I send in the notice of dispute.  I get my court summons in the mail last month.  The court I've been assigned is the farthest courthouse from my house in Hong Kong.  There isn't much farther I could go without leaving the country.  

Today was my court date (or so I thought).  I bring pictures of the street with me.  Get to court to find out that if I'm pleading not guilty they will set a trial date (and here I thought this was the trial).  So now I have to waste yet another day in court.  I show the pictures to the judge and prosecutor. The judge suggests to the prosecutor that in light of my photos, perhaps she wishes to no longer procede with the action against me.  She says she'll check with her office.  

Now I have to sit in court as we go through the rest of the cases before there is a break for the prosecutor to go call her office (another hour of sitting around).  When she returns she says that because there is no date on my pictures they will go to trial.  Her argument being that they may have put up a no parking sign after I took the pictures.  Thus making the very logical  assumption that some time in the past I randomly took pictures of this particular street and the signage on it just in case the police decided to erect a no parking sign in the future AND I happened to get a parking ticket while parked there.

So back to court I go in January.  And this time they said to leave the whole day free. 

And to top it all off, I can't even just give up and pay the fine anymore, thereby saving myself the hassle of going to court again.  If I want to pay now I have to pay the fine, a penalty, and court costs totally almost 4x the original fine.

Comments

  • Coach RichCoach Rich

    Joanne is flying to HK tomorrow to visit family, she was born there...I'll tell her to take the subway or a cab

  • Nemo BrauchNemo Brauch
    And to top it all off, I can't even just give up and pay the fine anymore, thereby saving myself the hassle of going to court again. If I want to pay now I have to pay the fine, a penalty, and court costs totally almost 4x the original fine.

    OUCH!!! To me, that's the worst part of the story!
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