Posted by tpc at September 24th, 2008

While perusing some blogs, while waiting for the rain to stop, I’ve found more evidence to support learning maths than replying on calculators.

A TRAFFIC warden gave parking fines to innocent motorists – because he did not know how to tell the time.

The bungling parking attendant had to use a calculator to work out the expiry time on tickets displayed in motorists’ windscreens.

But with calculators working in decimals rather than minutes and hours, the ticket-happy warden had his book out before realising his maths was letting him down.

One of his victims was IT manager Dave Alsop, who tried his best to show the warden the errors of his arithmetic ways. But to no avail.

The 29-year-old from Torbay had parked in the Terrace car park close to Torquay harbour and paid £1.20p for 75 minutes. His ticket was issued at 2.49pm and would have covered him until 4.04pm.

But when he returned at 3.41pm, he discovered he had been given a £50 parking fine.

He found the traffic warden nearby and asked him why he had been booked when his ticket clearly showed he had time remaining.

The warden disagreed and tried to prove his point using a calculator.

He tapped in 14.49 and added 0.75 to produce a total of 15.24, which he claimed meant Mr Alsop’s ticket expired at 3.24pm – 17 minutes before he returned to his car.

Mr Alsop said: “I tried to explain to the warden but he didn’t have a clue. He thought he was doing things correctly. He just carried on doing other cars parked there.”

The warden insisted he was right and issued fines to two other unsuspecting motorists.

Mr Alsop, who works for Pavey Insurance brokers in Torquay’s Abbey Road, appealed, had his fine waived and received an apology from Torbay Council.

Via -> Natural Blogarithms -> 360 -> God Plays Dice -> Eric Berlin