London Residents Fined Multiple Times For Parking In Their Own Driveways

Sure, parking is a real hassle—especially in the city, where paranoia about getting a ticket sits in the back of your mind no matter where you park.. But if there's one place you should never get it ticket, it's in your own driveway.

Some poor folks in London walked up to their ticket-laden cars—on more than one occasion, at that—in their designated parking areas earlier in September. The fines came on at least three separate days and were for £110, or about $142, according to the Telegraph. A resident of the housing complex for 14 years, David Gilbertby, told the Telegraph he went through both the local government entity and transportation services before being told he had "to contest [the fines] like everyone else does."

Autoblog made good sense of the strange situation:

It seems that all the confusion stems from the fact that the residents' homes are on one street, but the driveways, which are behind the houses, are on another street. The residents have permits to park on the street their house faces, but not on the street behind their house where their driveways are. Thanks to surprising new parking laws, the short driveways are considered "crossovers" and therefore part of the street. This means that, although the residents technically own their driveways, they cannot park in them legally because they are part of another street.

According to the Telegraph, the local council said they'd cancel the notices and that they hope residents "will work with [them] to improve the situation for everyone for the future."

It sounds like the residents don't have much work to do, but hey, whatever makes you feel better about handing out a bunch of bogus parking tickets.