Fear of Parking Inspectors

I wrote about parking before without discussing the diligence of the parking inspectors. They are employees of city councils and, as mentioned in the press, they are often given quotas for how many drivers to fine in order to meet city budgets. Their numbers are overwhelming and I believe the parking regulations are designed while keeping in mind that the inspectors need to be paid AND the city has to make an income. Shopping areas with plenty of parking will often have 2-hour limited spots, 1-hour and 4-hour, even if they never fill out, just so in case one overstays, they can be fined. What happened to me yesterday was in fact funny and made me aware of how other people feel about the parking fines. Our hospital recently added another large, new building, but didn't create one new parking space. There is a continuous crisis for parking and by noon not even patients can park. This results in the overloading of the surrounding parking areas. When I arrive at work before 7:30AM, I park on the street for $4/day, the cheapest one can find and the only parking that is not limited to 1h or 2h. I parked at 7:30 yesterday and I went to get a ticket from the ticket machine. The machine said "Ticket machine closed. No tickets available." I celebrated with a huge smile, but while walking back to my car to take my stuff, I noticed on the dashboard of all other parked cars, people put a note saying "No tickets available from the machine/ (the time when they parked)/ Displayed in the car" I paused, read again and decided that all these other drivers must have been afraid that if the machine is fixed later, but they do not return to their car during that time to buy a ticket, the hungry parking inspectors may be leaving them a fat fine. So not even when the city council doesn't fix a broken ticket machine can you be certain that they will take responsibility. You still have to find a way to avoid a false fine. I wasn't going to put any note, just out of curiosity and rebellion, to see if I ever get fined. But the headache of having to fight an unfair fine is so much worse, I left a note, too, on my dashboard. Today's picture is another tropical flower, which looks like a bird-of-paradise flower, but I am not 100% sure what it is.