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It’s racy: the story of the two parking tickets that were issued in Stockholm in the summer of 2018.
In both cases, the parking fees were paid through a mobile payment service.
One car had a registration from the Netherlands and the other from Germany.
In the first case, Judith Voss entered the complete registration number in a sequence in the mobile payment service. His car had the registration number GD-483-T. He typed GD483T.
In a second Germany’s Sabine Midendorf chose to enter the registration number with a hyphen instead of the spaces between letters and numbers. His car had the registration number ST AP 2288. He typed ST-AP-2288.
Both received parking tickets of SEK 750. The reason was that the parking guards could not verify whether the fees were actually paid because they considered that the registration numbers entered in the payment service did not correspond to the actual appearance of the signs.
GD-483-T was Judith’s car registration number. He typed GD483T into the mobile payment service. She was fined.
Photo: Private
Both Judith Voss from the Netherlands and Sabine Midendorf from Germany contested the responsibility for the fine to the police, that’s how it seems.
They sent the evidence that they paid their parking fees to the police.
So they thought the thing would be out of the world. Was not. The police said no, they would pay the fine. The police found it impossible for the parking guards to read the license plates and reconcile them with the information from the mobile payment service.
Therefore, Judith and Sabine had not fulfilled their “far-reaching obligations” to ensure that the car was parked in accordance with current regulations.
– It wasn’t the money, it was the beginning, says Judith Voss. We had paid, entered the correct registration number, and received an SMS confirmation through the app. Why should we take that fine?
The district court awarded both drivers Right. It was indisputable that he had paid and there was no instruction on how to enter foreign registration numbers, so how could they know?
Voss and Midendorf surprise judgment when the police authority chose to appeal the acquittals to the Court of Appeal.
– It felt like the police were acting like the private parking company’s own pickers. Unpleasant, continues Judith Voss, whose Renault Clio now has a Swedish license plate.
Police maintained that the fine would be paid.
“You have entered a registration number that contains dashes, despite the fact that the parking guard’s photographs show that the registration number is not hyphenated,” argued the police in the Court of Appeal in Sabine’s case.
Sabine Midendorf’s registration number was ST AP 2288. She typed ST-AP-2288. And he was fined. According to HD, the parking company “did not take into account all the variations that there is reason to expect” when it comes to foreign license plates.
Photo: Private
The Court of Appeal went to the district court acquittal in the case of Sabine Midendorf. Judith Voss and I followed the line of the police authority and ordered him to pay the fine.
Police appealed Midendorf’s verdict to HD; in Voss’s case, lawyer Bertil Hübinette helped her go to the Supreme Court.
On Thursday, HD’s sentences fell in both cases.
The motorists are acquitted, and HD says as the district court: The two motorists fulfilled their duties when they paid the parking fee. Nowhere in relation to the car park or mobile service they used to pay for did it indicate how the registration number should be entered.
When the parking guard verified the payment, according to the Supreme Court, “it did not take into account all the variations that can be expected” when it comes to the design of foreign registration numbers.
– They did what can be reasonably asked and therefore do not have to pay any wrong parking fees, writes HD in the sentences handed down on Thursday.
Lawyers Bertil Hübinette He is satisfied:
– A very important goal, many people are affected by it, 400 million parking tickets are issued a year, he says and continues:
– Should hyphens or spaces determine if you receive a fine even if you have paid? What’s the point of being so strict? Who should be able to impose a fine?
He believes that the HD verdict is very well written:
– Strengthens confidence in the judiciary. If the police wanted to have a precedent, now they have one.
Read more: Every fourth parking ticket appealed is wrong
Read more: Stopped parking fees on 289 streets
