parking ticket after hospital appointment

circuit

hi everyone;
today i had a rather unpleasant clinic appointment. i paid to park for an hour and a half. i was already feeling a little shaky and odd after the first part of the examinations etc, and then at the end of the appointment, i had a blood test. i came very close to passing out and the nurse had to sit with me giving me lucozade and water; i was also upset and she had to calm me down and stop me shaking/crying before i left. i got a parking ticket as i was late out of the clinic due to having to stay in a bit longer than i thought.
i have put in an appeal on the council website against the ticket - is there anything else i can do? i realise that the fine is totally legitimate, but it really was a horrible experience and the ticket just made me feel so low when i came out of the hospital.
thanks for any advice you can give me.

Astaroth

I have to say I do very much disagree with hospital car park charges but it is understandable for the majority of hospitals to avoid people using it as a free car park when they want to go shopping etc.

I had an equally unpleasant experience recently when I had to take the misses to A&E - they had 5 parking pays next to A&E which were for free but were all taken so firstly had to drop the misses off whilst I went to the other side of the complex into the public carpark (not good for one). I put 2 hours in but then had to leave her again in the waiting room awaiting the results of the emergency blood tests to determine if they were going to admit her or not to go and feed more money into the meter.

If they have to have pay for parking surely it would be much better to have a pay on exit process because people dont know how long they are going to be?

As you say however, it is an unfortunate situation and maybe an appeal to their human side will get through but I imagine a lot of people try exactly the same thing.

circuit

alas i was not actually in the hospital car park but on the street down the road.

dunx

Sounds like an upsetting experience - why do they do this ?

It beats me that hospitals use pay and display rather than pay on exit schemes. When you park you often have no idea how long you'll be there, so 'pay and display' becomes 'hit and miss' - and if you miss, you get fined. I would appeal and give them enough detail to check the facts if they wanted to - you have been caught out by unfortunate and unforeseen circumstances. Appealing to their sense of fair play may be the best chance, but I wouldn't count on a favourable response.

If it doesn't work, maybe suggest that you are so cross about it that you intend to take it to the local newspaper. Correspondence on paper always carries more weight than web correspondence, too.

Stompa

Perhaps just being persistent will do the trick, for example:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/6236159.stm

immoral_angeluk

I'd try and get a letter from the person treating you so you can appeal the ticket and prove you weren't well enough...

moonrakerz

The difference between hospitals on this is remarkable. Some fine you when you have been there 1 minute over, others are more realistic.

Salisbury District Hospital, is a good example, it has notices everywhere telling you not to worry if you overstay - you won't get a ticket.