Tickets wrongly given out for expired WOFs
Wellington City Council has admitted parking officers incorrectly gave out a number of tickets for cars with expired warrants of fitness (WOFs) – despite the Government extending all warrants and registrations by six months.
Last month, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced than all WOFs, registrations, and licences that expired after January 1 would be valid for up to six months from April 10, 2020.
Since level 2 began, Wellington City Council has handed out 199 tickets for vehicles that had WOFs and registrations that had expired before January 1.
A number of tickets had also been incorrectly given out for vehicles whose registrations had expired after January 1, Wellington City Council parking services manager Kevin Black said. Those tickets had been retroactively waived.
He was not able to say how many incorrect tickets were handed out.
Motor Transport Association strategy manager Grieg Epps told Stuff the six-month extension would cause problems for service stations, which were used to performing a steady stream of about 500,000 WOFs every month.
In total, 6108 infringements and 134 warnings had been issued by parking officers in the first 12 days of alert level 2.
Of those, 2531 tickets were for people not paying for parking at a metered space, and 1243 were for people staying too long at a metered space.
There were 959 tickets given for staying too long at non-metered parking spaces, and another 1176 for various infringements including parking in taxi stands, loading zones, and footpaths.
All parking was free in Wellington during lockdown levels 3 and 4.