We were tempted to go on a parking violation spree over here.
But did not, being good citizens and all.
Coming from a country where nothing is enforced quite as vigorously as parking violations, we were shocked to hear that the going fine for a ticket in Germany is 5 euros. That's less than the cost of parking in many places.
That's not a typing error or a prank pulled by some Germans.
It's real, and it is about to change -- fines are set to double!
Are you laughing yet?
We came from a place where the going rate for a simple parking ticket is now about 50 dollars, doubling automatically if you don't pay on time.
We came from a place where, frequently, you would only see the parking cops at 2 AM slapping even more expensive tickets on cars parked in the NO PARKING TUE 2 AM - 4 AM STREET SWEEPING zone.
It was heart breaking to see yet another ticket on the windscreen of the out-of-work neighbor, while the garbage continued to rest right there in the gutter. That overpriced street sweeping machine was broken so often, NASA would have no budget problems if all the illegitimate fines collected by US municipalities were donated to the moonbeams.
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