A senior citizen who owns a car in Durban has expressed outrage after receiving an R500 fine for parking in reverse.
On Thursday, July 21, Lovangavasan Rajagopaul received a parking ticket from a Durban Metro officer, and he was astounded by what he saw.
Rajagopaul claimed that when he questioned the fine, the reason given was that he was blocking oncoming traffic.
When the explanation wasn’t satisfactory to him, Rajagopaul turned to Facebook to seek a second or third opinion.
He wrote: “Hi wonderful people can someone justify an R500 fine for parking reverse at Addington Hospital?”
He said his reason for parking in that manner was to deter criminals from stealing out of his black VW Golf 1.
“My reason was to avoid my battery being stolen, it’s a hot spot area for theft out of motor vehicles,”
“I was not obstructing the flow of traffic, feeling so sad,” Rajagopaul lamented.
TimesLive spoke to the car owner following the incident. He said he was a patient at Addington Hospital and whenever he parks outside the medical facility he stresses about his car’s safety.
To make matters worse, he ended up worrying more about the R500 punishment than his car.
Boysie Zungu, a spokesman for the Durban metro police, told TimesLive that an internal review would be carried out to decide whether or not the fine would be rescinded.
Facebook users advised the automobile owner to resist giving up without a fight.
Kamala Reddy said: “You can argue the case with the state prosecutor. If you have broken the rules he may be sympathetic and reduce the fine. Wish you luck my brother. Need to read the regulations not sure if you have broken the law unintentionally”.