page_title: Parking violation
section_title: Europe
hierarchical_section_title: Parking violation / Europe
caption_attribution_description: English: An illegally parked Audi car being removed from outside the Naughton Institute, home of CRANN, on Pearse Street in Dublin.
context_page_description: A parking violation is the act of parking a motor vehicle in a restricted place or for parking in an unauthorized manner. It is against the law virtually everywhere to park a vehicle in the middle of a highway or road; parking on one or both sides of a road, however, is commonly permitted. However, restrictions apply to such parking, and may result in an offense being committed. Such offenses are usually cited by a police officer or other government official in the form of a traffic ticket.
context_section_description: In Europe, parking tickets are also heavily used. In Sweden, parking violations on street are considered traffic crimes with a fine. If the fine is not objected to or paid within a specified time, the Swedish Enforcement Administration will claim money from bank accounts or other assets, relatively fast. The owner will be noted as a bad payer, and will not get a loan or a new rental apartment etc. for three years. A parking violation in a parking place (not on the street) is considered a break of contract which results in a penalty fee with different rules. According to statistics from Stockholm the cars with the highest number of parking violations (weighted for number of cars) are Jeep, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and Lexus. Mercedes owners were the worst for parking in disabled spaces. Professor Gunnar Aronsson at the department for psychology at Stockholm university believes this is due to the owners being well-off and thinking that their time is more important. According to Jan Prestberg at the traffic office in Stockholm, the fines are low enough to be ignored by richer people. It is often hard to find parking spots in big cities. After wheel-locks were introduced in London, the prices for rented parking spaces went up considerably.
  Foreign-registered vehicles in Europe in reality cannot be fined. This is partly because it is too much work to find the owner in a foreign country, but mainly because it is not legally possible to claim money from a foreign resident person if they don't pay voluntarily. The European Union is introducing legislation into all member countries to collect fines across borders. In some cities, like London, this has been solved by locking one wheel of an unlawfully parked vehicle. The driver has to pay to be able to drive the vehicle.
caption: Car being towed in Ireland
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