Victoria
10-06-2008, 07:18 AM
Enjoy the new AP moment and l hope your day is going better than Adrian's was on this day. Keep smiling.
NO RYHM NO REASON
Recently I have spent some time in Budapest. Most of the time getting around is enough trouble anywhere you go and you have to be aware of signs that could get you ticketed or clamped. Budapest is no different. Well almost.
Recently I parked on a regular street in the same way I have parked in many
areas of the city. Here you can actually park on the pavement in some areas
since the streets are so small. On the day in question I made sure I had a
ticket, made sure there were no fire hydrants or signs saying that it was no parking. I was especially vigilant because I had received a ticket earlier in the day, even though I had placed a ticket on the dash, which somehow had blown off. Now I was going to have to prove that I had paid the fee for the time the ticket was given, especially since I was driving someone else's company car. For those of you who have had this happen you know it can be a pain in the proverbial in any city around the world to have to go to the parking office, wait in line and show the right documents, so now I wanted to make sure it didn't happen twice.
Well after I had finished my business appointment I came out at 6.30 to
find the car clamped, (or “booted” depending on which country you come
from....)Great I had my bags and my dog with me and now had to go to the
parking office and pay the fine before the clamp was removed. Leaving Dino
in the car and not speaking the language the office called a cab for me so I could go to the office to pay( where they also didn’t understand anything I was saying, except for the money that I was paying them, convenient).
While l waited for the “Clamp police” to unlock the offending item I decided to take pictures because I was sure I had been wrongly clamped. Not only were there cars parked EXACTLY the same as I was two streets down but right across the street two cars were parked in front of fire hydrants as well, of course with no clamps on them.
After about twenty minutes I saw two guys bending over and unlocking the
clamp, I walked over with Dino (which I am sure gave them a slight cause for concern ) and asked in broken words as to why I had been clamped, while pointing to two others across the street (also parked on the curb) had not. One of them smiled and I think said “well that is over there and this is over here”. Meanwhile the other one stared at me and finally said to his colleague, “Hey man that’s the Highlander” to which he received a blank stare because I think he had no idea what his buddy was talking about. That however didn't stop him then trying in broken English to ask me to wait a minute because he wanted to get a pen so I could give him an autograph. Oh yeah right, of course I was going to wait. NOT.
The next day getting my assistant to go and complain about the clamp and
showing them the pictures the answer she got was I had committed two
infractions.
1. I had TWO wheels on the curb. There were firstly no signs saying “Oh
here you are only to put one wheel on the curb” Meanwhile over half the city had cars parked with two wheels and in some cases all four up on the
sidewalk.
2. I wasn't parked one and half meters away from the building. As you can
see from the pictures I may have been a little shy of that, but
unfortunately at the time I didn't have my handy tape measure on me, which
of course I normally carry on me at all times for measuring my parking
distances. BLAHAHHHA. I couldn't help wondering how astute “Clamp police”
one and two had been in either ascertaining the distance my car was parked
away from the side of the building or that perhaps they too carried a tape
measure in their tool kit when they went around clamping offending
vehicles.
Needless to say I wasn't going to spend more time arguing the fact, because
it would cost me too much time, effort and money to fight it. So I leave you with the photos for you to judge for yourselves.
Peace
AP
http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd297/VIKKA26/parking01.jpg
http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd297/VIKKA26/parking02.jpg
http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd297/VIKKA26/parking03.jpg
http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd297/VIKKA26/parking04.jpg
NO RYHM NO REASON
Recently I have spent some time in Budapest. Most of the time getting around is enough trouble anywhere you go and you have to be aware of signs that could get you ticketed or clamped. Budapest is no different. Well almost.
Recently I parked on a regular street in the same way I have parked in many
areas of the city. Here you can actually park on the pavement in some areas
since the streets are so small. On the day in question I made sure I had a
ticket, made sure there were no fire hydrants or signs saying that it was no parking. I was especially vigilant because I had received a ticket earlier in the day, even though I had placed a ticket on the dash, which somehow had blown off. Now I was going to have to prove that I had paid the fee for the time the ticket was given, especially since I was driving someone else's company car. For those of you who have had this happen you know it can be a pain in the proverbial in any city around the world to have to go to the parking office, wait in line and show the right documents, so now I wanted to make sure it didn't happen twice.
Well after I had finished my business appointment I came out at 6.30 to
find the car clamped, (or “booted” depending on which country you come
from....)Great I had my bags and my dog with me and now had to go to the
parking office and pay the fine before the clamp was removed. Leaving Dino
in the car and not speaking the language the office called a cab for me so I could go to the office to pay( where they also didn’t understand anything I was saying, except for the money that I was paying them, convenient).
While l waited for the “Clamp police” to unlock the offending item I decided to take pictures because I was sure I had been wrongly clamped. Not only were there cars parked EXACTLY the same as I was two streets down but right across the street two cars were parked in front of fire hydrants as well, of course with no clamps on them.
After about twenty minutes I saw two guys bending over and unlocking the
clamp, I walked over with Dino (which I am sure gave them a slight cause for concern ) and asked in broken words as to why I had been clamped, while pointing to two others across the street (also parked on the curb) had not. One of them smiled and I think said “well that is over there and this is over here”. Meanwhile the other one stared at me and finally said to his colleague, “Hey man that’s the Highlander” to which he received a blank stare because I think he had no idea what his buddy was talking about. That however didn't stop him then trying in broken English to ask me to wait a minute because he wanted to get a pen so I could give him an autograph. Oh yeah right, of course I was going to wait. NOT.
The next day getting my assistant to go and complain about the clamp and
showing them the pictures the answer she got was I had committed two
infractions.
1. I had TWO wheels on the curb. There were firstly no signs saying “Oh
here you are only to put one wheel on the curb” Meanwhile over half the city had cars parked with two wheels and in some cases all four up on the
sidewalk.
2. I wasn't parked one and half meters away from the building. As you can
see from the pictures I may have been a little shy of that, but
unfortunately at the time I didn't have my handy tape measure on me, which
of course I normally carry on me at all times for measuring my parking
distances. BLAHAHHHA. I couldn't help wondering how astute “Clamp police”
one and two had been in either ascertaining the distance my car was parked
away from the side of the building or that perhaps they too carried a tape
measure in their tool kit when they went around clamping offending
vehicles.
Needless to say I wasn't going to spend more time arguing the fact, because
it would cost me too much time, effort and money to fight it. So I leave you with the photos for you to judge for yourselves.
Peace
AP
http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd297/VIKKA26/parking01.jpg
http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd297/VIKKA26/parking02.jpg
http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd297/VIKKA26/parking03.jpg
http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd297/VIKKA26/parking04.jpg