If you've been busted by a parking officer in Auckland, thank you for your contribution.
- Auckland bus lane takes $1.2 million in fines off drivers
- Auckland drivers slapped with nearly $11m in bus, transit lanes fines
Data released to Newshub shows Auckland Transport (AT) is raking in parking fine money, bringing in over $30 million in revenue in the last financial year.
Between July 1, 2017 and June 31, 2018, the Auckland Council-controlled organisation took in $32.2m - up $2m from the previous financial year's $30.2m.
And you don't bring in this much money by being stingy with the tickets.
Data released to Newshub shows AT issued a total of 492,227 infringements to offending motorists during the last financial year - up from 484,682 the year before.
The most common infringement notice was for parking over the time limit, while the year before was for not affixing the current license label in the prescribed manner.
There's also a good chance you were busted by Auckland's top parking officer. Known only as Parking Officer 1241, they handed out a staggering 13,068 tickets.
In second place was last year's champ, Parking Officer 1013, who issued 9102 tickets between 2017-2018 and 9359 tickets between 2016-2017.
All this ticketing doesn't come cheap - $20.5m per year in enforcement costs to be exact.
AT says the money gets invested into improving Auckland's roading network.
"Auckland Transport uses the money to fund safety-based initiatives, road maintenance and road development projects," says AT Parking Compliance Manager Rick Bidgood.
However the Automobile Association (AA) says that parking fine money should go back into parking.
"Any revenue from parking fees and fines should be used to improve parking services - such as rolling out smart parking technology - or funding general transport initiatives," AA's motoring affairs principal advisor for regulations, Mark Stockdale, told Newshub.
But if you do get ticketed, there is hope. During the last time period there were 91,479 successful ticket appeals.
"To dispute your ticket, you will need to have a legitimate reason as to why the ticket should not have been issued or is not justified," the AA says.
"These could be things like a valid pay and display receipt or photos of your vehicle or parking signs.
"For non-parking infringements (such as a ticket for no valid WoF or registration), most councils will waive the infringement if proof of compliance is provided within a set period (and if the WoF or rego had not expired for more than about a month)."
Newshub.
