I have avoided paying a parking ticket of £3 before because the fine is £50, and rarely (but sometimes) enforced. Assuming I get caught less than 1 in 17 times, it is a logical thing not to pay. I would say I get a ticket roughly 1 in every 40 times. which works out at about £1.25 per stay. Have you parked without paying because you know the occasional fine will be cheaper in the long run?
Nope, I've never done it to save money. I very, very rarely pay for parking, so for me, the risk ends up being a lot higher, especially when I am really only going to end up paying for parking when I'm in an area I don't know....which means I'm unlikely to know how often they check the parking lots. There have been two times that I HAVE parked without paying for it and it was because I didn't know I was going to need to and didn't have cash available for it. One of those two times, I ended up with a parking ticket that cost me far more than the parking would've, but I didn't have any options at the time.
I did park outside of the parking area in my train station for several months. The parking was 20€ for the month, and when I got a ticket it was a total of 120€ so as long as I only got a ticket every 6 months it was no problem, I did this for two years and never got a single ticket, but last year I got two tickets in the space of three months. Now I pay the 20€ a month, it's easier to pay a little every month than get those huge expenses unexpectedly.
Yes when I was younger. I wasn't because I didn't want to pay for parking though, it was because there was no public parking where I was visiting and I didn't want to park miles away. I used to drive down to Ohio University to visit some of my friends who had just started there when I was still in high school. I would park in the student parking spots all the time, and they would ticket me each time, but it was the "campus" police, so it wasn't anything "official" that I could go to jail over. I would just tear the tickets up and throw them out the window when I was headed home, lol. There was actually one small town that was on the news recently because some residents have been going around with bags of change and topping off any meters that had just expired - so the meter worker couldn't ticket them. The city is actually trying to stop them because it's eating into their revenue, but the residents are fighting back arguing that they aren't doing anything illegal. I do kind of feel bad for the meter worker though, they are just trying to make a living and do their job, and don't need to be demonized like that and treated like crap.
Both my wife and I have done this. The parking in our city is ridiculously expensive and more and more economic parking options are being turned in cash cows for the council. Fortunately to cut spending the council has reduced the number of parking inspectors which increases the chances of getting away with not paying. Combined we have saved hundreds of dollars in parking fees and have only been fined a couple of times at $77 per fine. Generally the inspectors will hit an area for a couple of days and then move on so once we have received a ticket we then pay for parking for a week and then don’t bother after that. I don’t feel guilty at all about it
Done it a few times when I was running late. It is quite the risk to take, but sometimes you just want to get away with it. I wouldn't recommend it because I did get a parking ticket once and that was not fun. No one wants to pay the fine! You feel great if you get away with it, but usually you don't. Those pesky inspectors are always out and about.
Those seem to be some interesting facts that you have gathered. I have never done it but am sure in my town the fine might be more than the parking fee. Otherwise everybody would be doing the same just as you have described in your post. A lot people am sure will exploit this weakness if it exists in the council.
I live in the city where they are always ticketing people for illegal parking. The great thing is, they do not really enforce payment. I have yet to pay an actual parking ticket. They do sometimes put those yellow boots on your car, which costs about 150 dollars to remove. I know the areas that they use this technique so I just avoid them.
I don't pay for parking when I am not going to stay for long. For example, I was taking the mail from the post office and I knew it wasn't going to take more than five minutes so I didn't pay. 90% of the time I pay for my parking tickets
