Paying for car parking

Surely everybody has a debit card these days?

Yes Maw, but some of the members of my W.I. go into a lather about using them in a car park, let alone tapping in their reg number. These tend to be the women who do not use IPads or IPhones.

Where I live it is done on one's phone- that is beyond me.

Same here Charleygirl5. Carol, my wife and me, have several apps on our phones for car parks. All you have to do is look at the car park tariff board that will inform anyone of the app that can be used and then just tap that in on your phone.

All that is required is the vehicle registration, the amount of time you wish to park for, and the card or Paypal details. It then even sends you a reminder text when that time is near expiry, and you can extend it without even returning to the car.

It has never failed for us and very convenient.

Parking for our local shops is free for the first 30 minutes and about 20p for the next 30 minutes. In the town centre it's a pound for the first 30 minutes and £2 for an hour we have a lot of pay points but they are in high traffic areas and I've never seen any vandalised. The most expensive place to park is the Hospital and again the pay points are in very busy area so unlikely to be targeted.

I can't imagine that anyone today would not have a debit or credit card. They are super-easy to use in parking stations, just pop the card in and off you go.

At the hospital the other day we had to pay for the car park before we left the out patient department, DH put the ticket in the machine up came a photograph of our car with the registration clearly displayed, big brother is watching you.

that's a new one on me harrigran. The pay stations are inside at our local hospital too.
I only have to pay for parking when I go to the hairdressers in town. There is no other reason for me to go there. It's such a small town that we have only quiet recently got the machines where you have to enter your reg No. We might get a card payment type in 10 yrs !

Yes Harrigran we use the photograph one at the P and R in Oxford. Last time it came up with 3 cars with our registration letters and we had to order closely to identify ours.

This is what I photographed when I bought my tickets at our station. Hope you can see it.
I’ll go on line and prepay.

When using these make sure you type in the correct reg . Unlike me , I got one letter wrong so had to pay again. Machine one end of car park and car the other end so could not see it to check .

I feel very lucky to live in a small town with several free Council car parks in the centre.
We also have an Asda, Aldi, Iceland all with parking and a Tesco Express all within a few hundred yards of each other and a high street full of private retail shops and little cafes.
I love it here!

The Parking liberation front appears to have won its ongoing battle with the Water Board at the parking places near our local reservoirs. As fast as the parking machines have been repaired, the PLF arrives in stealth and destroys the machines again. For over a year now, we've all been parking free as a result.
I expect the Water Board has a cunning plan to introduce pay by debit card machines but I don't suppose that will stop the vandals/PLF. It isn't about stealing the bit of money in the machine, it's opposition to fleecing drivers.

We have the dreaded “Evil Eye” in our town NanKate ( otherwise known as Parking Eye) . They are in car parks , hospitals and even our supermarkets ! Their motto is fine, fine, fine ! Mind you the ( labour controlled) LA get a decent cut of the spoils so it will suit them.

I prefer to pay with coins.
I hate everything being done by machine.

Our local authority and its neighbour all give one or two hours free parking. A town further away has free parking, 24/7. That is why I go there when I want to buy clothes or do Christmas shopping - possibly even have lunch.

What I wish they would do is standardise the operation of these car number machines. At my local carpark, you just key the number in (with numbers and letters vertical rows), press the button and get the ticket. In the nearby town, where I go once week, you have to press the green button before you put the number in and the letters and numbers are in horizontal rows, not vertical, I usually forget to press the button and have to start again.

Do not start me on the colours used on the alphanumeric keys.

I agree with the standardisation thing MOnica on a recent visit to the UK I found it all a bit confusing.
We are lucky here in rural France there are no car parking charges apart from those in cities. I have quite got out of the habit of paying to park.

Well I’ve just tried to pay online(see earlier comment) and guess what. I haven’t managed it?.
I put in all my details and then all my card details but then got a message saying th3 site wasn’t secure.
I have received an email welcoming me to the site but no evidence of payment.
After phoning , a bit of a struggle, I got a reasonably pleasant girl who couldn’t find any of my details. So now I’ll have to check my bank statement.
It used to be so easy. Turn up, pay and go.

Here in the New Forest we can buy a yearly parking clock for £25 it allows 3hours free parking in all the New Forest car parks. Very convenient and it can be used in any car.

That is a brilliant idea MacCavity2 why can't other areas do that.

At the cottage we stay at in the beautiful New Forest they leave a parking disc for us to use during our stay, which saves us quite a bit.

I no longer go into town in my car - too expensive to park, and I keep worrying about getting back in time. Now, I take the Park & Ride bus (which runs every 10 minutes). Much cheaper, and I don't have to worry about parking.

We have a cc machine at our local railway station. I have tried to use it many times, going through all the instructions, but I now use the car park next door which is cash only. Don't know what I'm doing wrong but it's do frustrating. Grrr.

NanKate - we may live in the same district. I am unhappy about using a credit or debit card to pay for parking and have so far resisted. I do not know how secure the system is given how easy it has been to vandalise similar machines. I was relieved when visiting a neighbouring town (different council) to find they still have the 'old fashioned' type of machine where you puts in your money and out comes a ticket - not digitalised in any way and lo and behold these machines do not get vandalised - steel bar across the cash box.