Parking Ticket Blunder – Our Mistake Story
Introduction
Renting a car during overseas travels is one of our favourite ways of exploring a country at our own pace. It allows us to stop and wander without sticking to a set path. While this gives you immense flexibility, you do need to be very careful about rules and regulations. This mistake of ours was a complete surprise to us and we hope our readers can learn from it and avoid such a costly mistake. Let’s get started
Our Travel Route
We were traveling in the beautiful country of Germany and were on the last day of our super road trip. We had rented a Mercedes Benz E Class vehicle and thoroughly enjoyed driving on the autobahn. Despite driving at consistent speeds of 100 kmph you still feel like you are walking on the road compared to the other drivers. These are probably the only set of roads in the world without a speed limit and some drivers are always in a hurry.
We were traveling from the city of Baden-Baden in the Black Forest Region to the Frankfurt airport. Along the way we were a bit thirsty and had run out of water. We took a small detour to Darmstadt which is a city on the way. We found a restaurant serving vegan food called “Vapiano” and parked our vehicle in the section titled “For Vapiano Customers Only”. We had a coffee and something to eat within 5 minutes and were back at our car.
We saw a police lady printing a yellow slip right in front of our eyes. We approached her and asked her what the issue was and she simply said you did not have the parking disc. We tried to explain to her that we parked in the right section meant for the customers and were only in store for a short while but she said she cannot do anything about it as the slip has already been printed.
Ticket Debate
We told her that we are tourists and had absolutely no idea what a parking disc was. She showed us a couple of vehicles where a disc was placed near the steering wheel for the police to verify. I recollected that there was something like this in our vehicle and my first instinct was to put it on the back seat as it was of no use.
Since the lady was not willing to help us we tried to tell her that there should be some instructions about using the parking disc in the first place. How are tourists supposed to know this. She pointed us to another board which had everything written albeit in german.
The above photo literally means “parking during opening hours max. 120 minutes with parking disc outside the opening times only with parking permit. Parking without a valid parking permit without a parking disc or exceeding the free parking time costs at least 30 euros”
Now we may have been guilty of not using Google Translate then and there but your first instinct when you head into a place which is reserved for a restaurant is to simply ignore everything else. After multiple travels in the US you tend to take such things for granted and parking is paid only if there is a meter nearby. This was our first road trip in Europe and we had to learn a few things still.
Resolution Attempt
30 Euros for a stupid mistake from our end. We should have just stopped at a supermarket where parking is free and had a coffee and some snacks there. Anyway we requested the lady once more and she asked us to send this to the parking authority by email. They have the authority to grant waivers.
We shot an email to them within 15 minutes. The parking authority confirmed the receipt of the email and said someone will look into it. They responded after 3 weeks saying that they had reviewed our petition of not understanding german but the fine would still had to be paid. Well worth a try at least.
We decided that there was no point in extending this any further. We sent an email to our car rental agency on the next day to debit our card on record and then pay off the fine to the parking agency. We promptly received a reply stating that they will look into it. We thought our troubles were over but they were just getting started.
Surprise Surprise
We were under the impression that our car rental agency would be paying the fee on our behalf and everything was done. Around 2 weeks after our email requesting our car rental agency, we received an email from them for processing charges of 25 Euros. A fine of 30 Euros required a fee of 25 Euros which was ridiculous but it was already charged. I thought this was done and dusted and it proved to be an extremely expensive pit stop.
Since there was a delay due to this correspondence the parking authority had also increased the fine to 36.50 Euros. Things were just getting worse. I made an international call to the Rental Agency who said that we have to pay the fine ourselves. I asked them what the processing fees were for and they said that it was for intimating us. A fee paid by us to know something that was already known to us in the first place. Apparently this is standard practice by the car rental agencies. They responded a week later via email as well that I had to make the payment on my own. How prompt of them.
Fine Payment
Since the car rental agency refused to pay the fine and charge us we had to find a way to make the payment on our own. The options for paying such a fine via SWIFT Transfer is extremely limited. I turned to HDFC Bank which is one of the largest private banks in India. They had a way to make the payment online but the minimum payment amount is USD 100 or equivalent. On top of that there are SWIFT Transfer charges of about USD 30 charged by the intermediary banks to make the transfer.
The other option to make such a payment was Money Changers like Western Union and other Full Fledged Money Changers authorised by the Reserve Bank of India to make remittances. Even they refused saying that USD 100 would have to be paid. The fine just ballooned up from 36 Euros to approximately 90 Euros due to these constraints even after assuming the intermediary bank charges would be taken care of. Our frustration was increasing at our inability to find a better method.
I read about this new service called Transfer Wise but even they use local banks to make the payment and the same constraints applied here. A simple credit card payment link or paypal link was all that was required and even in this digital age we were struggling to make this payment.
Final Solution
I had to ask a friend based in the EU region to make the payment to the agency on our behalf. It was a quick and efficient solution. We Indians are always used to “Jugaad” and had to think out of the box to make this one right. The proper channels were just not supportive here.
Learnings
- Do your research before heading off to a new country about local traffic laws. You might not be able to learn anything but anything new might help
- Ask the rental agency about any precautions that need to be taken. Read your T&Cs very carefully (Especially the fine print)
- If you find something new in your car, ask the rental agency. You might learn something new and avoid trouble later on.
- Use google translate if you find a sign you can’t understand. Ask the locals if in doubt
- If you do end up getting fined, try and pay the fine there itself if you have time. Local post offices in Germany can process such fines which will save a lot of time and hassle later
- Email your requests but also call to follow up. Had we known that our rental agency would not process the fine, we would have paid the fine immediately and ended up saving the delay penalty and the processing charges
Conclusion
Driving in a new country is a lot of fun and allows flexibility in your travel plans. Just be conscious of the traffic rules and be alert. Hope you learnt something useful from our article. Happy Travels!
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