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What do you make of this?
These signs appeared one day at our local park and they seem rather poorly thought out.
Ok, so there are parking restrictions 9-3... ok.... you can park for 4 hours... great .... and you can pay... so long as you have a phone with you... and the amount is anyone's guess!
The small print which may not be clear in the pic is "new customers send the word park and your vehicle registration number to 6100. We will call you for location and payment details."
The park website says the restrictions are Mon- Sat and the first hour is free but you must "activate a digital stay for this hour".
Clearly not a life and death issue but how hard is it to get the right parking restrictions (ie Sun is excluded) and put a cost on a sign? Do you reckon they had to get the signs made before the details were actually decided?
The main reason I'm not a fan of this is I got stung for an extra £10 charge on my phone bill having texted for parking in another park in the city. The charge came from a gambling company without my permission or any warning which with a bit of digging later turned out to be related to the company providing the parking payment options and it looks like my number was passed on and scammed. I later learned that the phone company can do nothing about these unsolicited charges and you have to opt in to blocking such things (I remember other threads about this on STW). When did a ticket machine become such a bad option?
Anyway, 1/10 rant over 😀
I'd be *****d there, I'm on plusnet and they don't support short text codes
and put a cost on a sign?
If you put the price on the sign you need to manufacture new signs every time the price changes
Piece of piss.
you can pay… so long as you have a phone with you
More likely than having cash with you these days. I never have cash on me and pay for my parking by phone (although I try to avoid paid for parking anyway).
(ie Sun is excluded)
It says Mon-Sat 9-3. Which means Sunday is excluded.
I’d be *****d there, I’m on plusnet and they don’t support short text codes
The left half of the lower sign shows how to pay with the app. This will also tell you how much it costs, and deal with the gambling scam text the OP had.
It's all pretty easy. Much easier than getting hold of coins in 2019. If a ticket machine can't take card or there's no pay by phone option I basically can't park there, unless I've been to some tax-doding cash only shop before hand to buy something and happen to have some coins.
or get me to make a sticker to go over the old price (I make car park signage!)If you put the price on the sign you need to manufacture new signs every time the price changes
There is nothing wrong with the top sign as such, it doesn't have to explicitly state Sunday is free parking as it's implied. This is how they're always worded. It is a bit odd though, you would normally have a sign like that for on-street parking (they never have the price on them but there will be a tariff board by the parking machine). I have never seen one like that in a car park! The bottom one is way too small for the amount of text on it. Feel free to tell them that, in my professional opinion, they have crap signage. Get them to phone me & I'll sort it out 😂
If you put the price on the sign you need to manufacture new signs every time the price changes
Ay? Did you think that comment through before typing it?
I make car park signage
I write computer programmage.
To be fair - if I saw that sign I would think that it meant you get 4 hours & no fee. It's deliberately misleading.
you have to opt in to blocking such things
Yup, and then you can't pay for your parking.
When did a ticket machine become such a bad option?
Probably about the same time cars big enough to fit one in the back of were invented. Apparently a lot of rural ones barely break even between the cash being stolen of the machine being vandalised.
I bloody hate those pay by phone ones though. Either you spend ages on the phone going through the voice recognition or typing numbers in, of you have to download a new app for seemingly every council or street!
Just download the app. Likely you'll use it a lot as most local stuff will be same app. Price will be on app. Easy. Who carrys cash now??
Who carrys cash now??
I always leave a few coins in a pouch in the door pocket. Mostly RingGo round here though...
To be fair – if I saw that sign I would think that it meant you get 4 hours & no fee. It’s deliberately misleading.
I agree. It looks a lot like a standard UK free parking sign:
It says Mon-Sat 9-3. Which means Sunday is excluded.
Yep meant to delete that bit but missed the edit cut off 😳
if I saw that sign I would think that it meant you get 4 hours & no fee. It’s deliberately misleading.
That was my first thought- "great 4 hours free parking!". Then "oh it says something about paying... wtf????". I thought perhaps you have to pay if staying longer than 4 hours. As I said, according to the park website the first hour is actually free so it is doubly misleading or doubly incompetent.
I bloody hate those pay by phone ones though. Either you spend ages on the phone going through the voice recognition or typing numbers in, of you have to download a new app for seemingly every council or street!
Indeed. The payment method is even worse the the signage design. I'm not massively keen on sharing goodness knows data what with an app from the same company who has already taken an unsolicited tenner the last time I used their text to pay service (I know our data is out there already but I'm not desperate to make it easier than I need to having already been stung).
Yup, and then you can’t pay for your parking.
I didn't realise that. Shows how much I use this type of thing. Ah the fun.
Royal Victoria Park in Bath?
Why would anyone need to drive to the local park? (I’m guessing, drive 300m to throw a ball for a dog for twenty minutes, leaving dog shit in the undergrowth, then drive home the 300m. Job done.)
😁
This one is from Alexandra Park after they repainted the parking bays.
Victoria Park is where I actually had the shady payment taken afterwards. They have ticket machines there and payment only via coins or text. At least there the first hour free is clear on the signs though it is easy to miss that you need a ticket even for that first hour (fair enough so there is some record of when you arrive). The really annoying thing there is that the machines are usually out of order so you get to explore the park before even getting a ticket 🙂 Maybe another reason to not have machines but hey
Why would anyone need to drive to the local park?
Pregnant wife and big ass hill. Also, this is Bath so the chauffeur has to wait somewhere 😀
Could they not have aligned the bottom bit with the rest of the text. This is just like a work when somebody sends me a Word Doc to fill in and I spend two minutes filling it in and about four years formatting it
+1 for Nico - signs not signage
iece of piss.
you can pay… so long as you have a phone with you
More likely than having cash with you these days. I never have cash on me and pay for my parking by phone (although I try to avoid paid for parking anyway).
I spent the best part of 40 minutes trying to pay for parking by phone in Bristol once. The text option wouldn’t work, the voice option repeatedly misunderstood the details I was trying to give, regardless of how clearly I spoke, and the phone signal was too poor to download an app. I gave up and drove somewhere else to park.
I’ve had a similar issue in Salisbury city centre trying to pay for parking.
At least now some car parks are getting a clue and installing payment machines that accept cash, contactless card and Applepay, which just works.
The phone/text ones are almost unusable.
And I often carry cash; oddly enough it’s a payment system that’s clearly understood by everyone and easily carried out.
Try decoding something like this...
A common skit from Australian comedians is imitating an English person trying to understand Melbourne's parking restrictions!
local government establishments just cover the existing signs with their own around here
https://flic.kr/p/2gm7Zyc
A common skit from Australian comedians is imitating an English person trying to understand Melbourne’s parking restrictions!
Easier than understanding your tram intersections!
I rarely have cash. However, I only have a work provided phone so can't use it to pay for parking.
No ticket machine, outrageous, where do you get rid of all your 5p and 10p's?
I dunno, this hard?
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My flaw, twice now a few years apart hence forgetting the second time, is reading the first line "Mon-Sat" thinking, ah it's Sunday I'm good, wandering off and coming back to a ticket, realising that halfway through the sign it them says "Sunday"! Happy to admit I'm at fault, but it's pee poor design!