Giving away an unused parking meter ticket

I have faced this scenario a few times and am interested in how other people regard it, especially now that Munich and other cities are cracking down and creating specified parking zones with varying hourly rates. This morning I paid 50 cents for parking in a time-limited zone and got a ticket worth 1½ hours (don’t ask me, I thought 50 cents would be ½ hour, which was all that I needed).

When I came back to the car 20 minutes later I took the ticket back to the ticketing machine and placed it in the dispenser slot, well visible for the next person if such person is concentrating on what he is doing and not automatically chucking money into the machine first. So he takes the valid and paid for ticket and places it in his car, knowing that he can stay for an hour or so and skips off happily, rejoicing over an unexpected freebie.

So what do you think: Is this il/legal, im/moral or ethically supportable/reprehensible?

my bet...

Legal: no
Moral: yes

It is what Sir Galahad would do.

It's like selling on a Bayern Ticket after you've used it: not permitted, but everyone did it. Now you have to write your name on it before using it. In this scenario, they could make you write your registration number on the ticket before placing it in your window.

I have no problem with it as I find the use of over-priced parking zones to be one of the most immoral rip offs ever. I think 50 cents for 90 mins isnt to bad however as rates can be higher.

In any circumstance where the rates are high I would have no problem using or giving a ticket to someone else that was still valid.

I only wish this was possible in airport car parks in the UK. At Newcastle its obscene, 1 hour can cost around 6 pounds, 4 of those come in the first 30 minutes.

The drop off and pickup point has 10 mins free then jumps to 2 pounds for the next 10 mins and climbs from there.

Granted thats the UK but over priced parking zones anywhere, where people have little or no choice is just a open way of getting lots of cash from people.

actually in some other EU cities, you have to type the first (or is it the last??) 3 letter/numbers of your number plate onto your ticket. This sucks, I always leave my ticket for someone else.. however I reckon there is also probably a law against it.

In the UK didn't the London underground use the laws designed to stop ticket touts to also stop people giving / selling on their train tickets ??

It is not illegal as i do it all the time.The payment is for an allotted time to park in a certain area.If however you have one of them parking permits for people living in a certain place and pass that on that is illegal

I assume it is perfectly legal unless it is stated otherwise on the ticket ("nicht übertragbar" or something like that)

@ luvlein - Good point, I have an old one in the car and will take a look this evening.
@ MD - Depends; we have a permit for the downtown office and hand it out to clients when they come around for appointments but basically it is meant for firm employees only.

The logic here is wonderful.

I must admit I pass on my tickets all the time if there's time left on them.
visiting a family friend this weekend who was a traffic-warden in Munich a few years back, I'll ask her & report back.

STB what seems to be your problem.Every time i post you have to post sarky comments directly after.Get a life eh?Because its even come to notice of other T.T. members

I was about to post something similar to STB's post as well, to be fair, until I saw that he already had. Just because you do it "all the time", it doesn't make it legal! Maybe it's legal, maybe it isn't and you just haven't been caught. I think STB may mean it's better to write something along the lines of "I usually do this, and in my experience have never had any problems, but proceed with caution!"

Well according to the Politesse here where i live its ok to do it.She sees people doing it and they have been in to the legalities of it and there is nothing that the authorities can do about it.UB nothing against you just that STB has been doing this for some time now hence my comments.Even got e mails off other T.T.ers that have mentioned this form of virtual stalking

It's the haste at which you arrive at frequently incorrect conclusions, and then post this conclusion as unquestionable fact, that troubles me.

I wouldn't call it "virtual stalking"; I can recall only one other thread where I questioned your comments. I'd have written the same regardless of who made the comments, so I think you're being a little paranoid.

Edit: Me stalking you? You're stalking me! Don't tell me you just coincidentally found Taking a folding bike on the S-Bahn a week after the last post!

spoke to my traffic warden friend she also said it's 'ok' and 'warum nicht?'.
am guessing with Mik's earlier post it wasn't a case of what he wrote but how he wrote it.

Yes they did

I wouldn’t give mine away, I wouldn’t be able to claim it back, in fact I look for other peoples tickets …now that’s illegal

Looking for them isn't, submitting them to taxes is. [/pedant]

looking with intent ? maybe

The problem is, if you have passed the ticket on to someone else, and then you get back to your car just as the police are checking tickets (or even if they check your car as your are not there, giving a ticket away), there is no proof that you have paid.

I did this once, and was pounced on by a parking controller. We managed to sweet talk our way out of the problem, but he was minded to fine me :-(

Wouldn't the ticket have your car's DNA on it?
*I have been watching too much CSI.*

Its german law that you are only unofficially parked after your car is in the parking place for 3 minutes.Ever notice that the parking attendants are always looking at their watches and write the exact time down on the ticket when its issued

There is no warning that passing on a ticket is prohibited. So I suppose it is legal, moral and ethically supportable and brings good car-ma.
*Takes car keys and leaves*

How does it work if I want to park for longer than 3 minutes?

MrNosey - either you buy a ticket after 3 minutes, or you drive off down the road!!!
As for the initial question posed by this post - I have yet to come across a German trying to pass on his/her ticket to the next person, but back home in good old Blighty it´s the only thing to do!!!
(this is not meant as a "beleidigung" to the Germans here, but is my observation so far, so please don´t be getting your knickers in a twist over it, okay?)

I, on the other hand, have had a nice old German gent in Rosenheim asking me for my ticket. He used the same logic as I would apply - it's one car parked in one space and paid for. So I gave it to him as I got in, he took the risk of parking without a ticket until someone came around. He said he'd asked a traffic warden, she said there's no law against it, so share the love tickets.

I love to pass on my tickets, particularly at park and ride car parks, just to see the faces of the person I'm passing it onto. The disbelief that someone could be so generous.

I also do this in supermarkets, where there are stickers to be collected for whatever the offer is.

Isn't this one of the reasons we're living here and not in the UK? In Oxford and other cities (Peterboro, if you can believe that!), you are actually required to put in the license number of your vehicle! The parking ticket monitors (not allowed to call them traffic wardens, or yellow peril or anything non-PC) DO check, so you can't get away with sticking something not nice on it. You'll just get a fine.

I don't get this. You pass the ticket on AFTER you have finished parking. After that it is the other person;s responsibility.

Of course it is not illegal. It is no more illegal than arriving at a parking meter that still has time on it, and parking there till that time runs out.


Several Germans have passed their unused tickets on to me. Maybe I just lived in a very nice town! (Schwaebisch Hall)

I also appreciate the fact that you can pay less for a fraction of an hour, for instance, 20c for 15 minutes. Also, you can get your money back if you present the ticket to a store when you have shopped there. Where I live in England you pay £1.20 regardless of how long you stay. Nobody here (UK) has ever passed an unused ticket on to me.

Hold on, there's the problem. When you pass the ticket on, you're still parked. Or where exactly is your car? I hope not out blocking traffic.

For the first three minutes after you pull into a spot, you're just standing, and that's free. After that you're parked, for which you should have bought a ticket within the three minutes standing. If you want to be just standing again, so that you can give away your remaining parking ticket, you must at least pull out of your spot. Whether that suffices and you can just pull back in, or whether you need to drive round the block or into another spot, I'm not sure. But at that point, it's hardly worth the effort. So be generous at your own (small) risk.

Well, no. I only pass my ticket on if there is already somebody waiting to take it. So I drive out, with ticket, let him drive in, then dash out to give him the ticket. Won't take even 30 seconds, and the motor is still running! This usually happens in a car park, so there is no blocking of traffic.

I think you're right, but the lack of specificity is odd. With other tickets, it usually specifies "übertragbar" (transferrable) or "unübertragbar" (not transferrable). A day pass on the MVV is transferrable (which is what I buy when traveling to the airport, because it costs just a little more and usually I can sell it to someone who just arrived at the airport). But the Deutsche Bahn regional day or weekend ticket is not transferrable (it says so on the ticket + you have to print your name on it so nobody else can use it).