An Australian driver tried to pay for parking with coins, despite the parking meter being cashless. (Source: Facebook)
Australian drivers are being warned not to do as one man did when confronted with cashless parking meters – he was unable to pay his parking ticket with his card and put up a sign with two coins on it as proof he wasn’t trying to cheat the system.
They argued that a cashless revolution “doesn’t suit their lifestyle.” But North Sydney City Council, which recently upgraded all of its parking meters to cashless, explained to Yahoo Finance that this approach could backfire in a big way.
“The only way to avoid fines is to comply with the sign regulations for the space you park in,” a council spokesman said.
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“In metered parking spaces, you must pay using the parking meter. If you don’t leave a note and pay the fee, you could be fined.”
With parking fines costing $136 in this council area, installing similar signs would be risky.
It’s unclear exactly where in Australia the anti-cashless driver’s note was found, but it’s clear it has touched a nerve with many, having been shared across multiple social media pages.
In the note, the car owner wrote: “I will always pay for parking with these coins. I would appreciate it if you would not fine this car.”
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Australians, firm believers in the belief that “cash is king,” supported the driver to the end.
“Cash options should always be available,” one user wrote.
“Firstly, how can you expect people to be so familiar with online credit card apps that they’ll just download them while standing on the street? I’m having such a hard time paying,” said another.
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A third added: “It’s a great idea but the inspectors have no sense of humour and just hand out fines.”
Others pointed out that the coins left by drivers were likely in locked cars, so parking enforcement officers would not have had access to them.
Why North Sydney has gone cashless
The council, on Sydney’s Lower North Shore, revealed it had to remove old parking meters because they were running on a 3G network that will soon be shut down.
North Sydney also noted that the proportion of people paying for parking with cash was incredibly low.
“Over the past year, the number of people paying for parking with coins has fallen to less than 4%,” the company said.
“Failure of existing parking meters occurs mainly due to vandalism and clogging of coin boxes.
“Eliminating coin payments reduces ongoing maintenance costs and ensures the long-term reliability of parking meters.”
North Sydney Council has replaced traditional parking meters with a new cashless system. (Source: North Sydney Council)
Coin-operated meters have been phased out and replaced with new meters that accept digital payment methods such as cards, smartphones and smartwatches.
This infuriated some residents, who were concerned about people without digital payment methods who would be unable to pay their parking fees.
A council spokesman told Yahoo Australia that staff had been deployed throughout the meter rollout to ensure residents knew how to use the meters.
“We welcome feedback and are working hard to make the transition easy for the community. Those supported found Touch and Go, the PayStay app and the parking meters relatively easy to use. To increase awareness, the council is increasing the number of Touch and Go and parking meters,” they said.
“Feedback to ground staff showed that the new parking meters were quicker, but they acknowledged that some people were unhappy with the cashless meters. As the meter system changed from paying per parking space to paying per number plate, ground staff noted that users had adapted well to this small change.”
“If you’re new to the PayStay app or PayStay Guest, it may take you more time to navigate the program and we recognize that this opt-in technology may not be convenient for everyone.”
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