Auckland Transport has cancelled around 270 parking tickets “issued in error” to drivers for failing to pay despite the parking machine not allowing them to do so.
Waiuku resident Allie Dwyer drove into the city centre with her family on August 4 to meet her son for lunch to celebrate both his birthday and the submission of his master’s thesis.
She parked on Whitaker Place and said she “vividly” remembered the details of the parking machine due to the recent changes with parking in the city.
“I knew that at some stage, Sunday paid parking was coming in, but I didn’t know if it had come in yet, so we looked at the machine to check.
“It didn’t say you had to pay on the Sunday, and when we tried to push the buttons, we couldn’t even enter our car number plate.”
Dwyer said they went off to have lunch “safe in the understanding that paid parking on Sunday hadn’t come in yet”.
But 12 days later, an infringement notice for unpaid parking arrived in the mail from Auckland Transport.
She queried the fine online and received a response insisting that the fine be paid:
“After reviewing your explanation, and the reasons for the ticket, we have decided to proceed with enforcing the fee. It is an offence to park a motor vehicle in a paid parking area without meeting the payment requirements indicated on the machine.”
Dwyer said she was “stubborn as a bull”.
“Now if I’d made an error, I’d pay that $40, but it was the principle of the matter, because we looked, we tried to pay.”
She said she was “very pleased” to hear that the tickets had been waived, but said she had not received notification that her ticket had been cancelled from Auckland Transport yet.
An Auckland Transport spokesperson said a few machines missed being programmed when it moved to charging for Sunday and public holiday parking on July 1. Those machines were updated on Friday.