Just a reminder...

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Four Passengers Die in Burning Tesla After Electronic Doors Seemingly Won't Open
futurism.com/the-byte/four-die…
"You couldn't open the doors."

#FuckCars

Four Passengers Die in Burning Tesla After Electronic Doors Seemingly Won't Open

Four people died after a Tesla crashed and burst into flames, while a fifth person narrowly escaped after a bystander broke open a window.

^{Frank Landymore (Futurism)}

Someone (mastodon.design/@arkd/11336791…) recently linked a video from a Polish Parliament meeting regarding illegal parking. It includes quite an interesting presentation, so I've figured out I'll summarize it for those of you who don't speak Polish.

Long story short, there are paid parking areas in Polish cities. If you fail to pay for parking properly (including, say, not getting back in time, making a typo in license plate number, choosing the wrong tariff), dedicated employees can issue quite severe fines. In fact, you can be fined multiple times in a single day for the same mistake, making the total very severe.

However, this applies only to formally marked parking spots. If you park illegally, say, on a sidewalk, grass, too close to a pedestrian crossing, you can't be fined for not paying the parking fees. Instead, the police or municipal guard can fine you for illegal parking. And this is where it gets "funny".

According to the speaker:

• You get fined 100 PLN (≈ 25 EUR) — which is much lower than fines for not paying the parking fee. For comparison, a person dropping trash on the street can be fined 500 PLN.
• Apparently, if you keep the ticket visible, you're unlikely to get another one.
• If you throw away the ticket and refuse to accept the mail from municipal guard, it's not considered delivered and they can't enforce the fine.
• Even if you accept the mail, you can give a totally random name as the "driver" (the driver is being fined, rather than the owner). You're not obliged to give (or know) the address, and they have to actually find that "driver", so they end up being "unable to find the culprit". Technically, you could be punished for giving false testimony, but apparently it's extremely hard to prove.
• Even if the municipal guard locks the wheels of your car, you can call them and when they arrive, use the "random name" trick. And again, it's apparently very hard for them to prove that it wasn't the case and actually fine you.
• If the municipal guard is coming to you while you're still in the car that's standing illegally, you can just drive away — they aren't allowed to stop a running car (funny enough, they are allowed to stop and fine cyclists).
• Cars on foreign license plates aren't fined at all — because neither police, nor municipal guard is permitted to obtain owner's data.

Then, the person from Warsaw Municipal Guard added that towing an illegally parked car requires proving that it *actually* posed danger to traffic. For example, if a car is parked close to a pedestrian crossing, the municipal guard may need to prove that they've witnessed a pedestrian crossing the street dangerously because of the parked car, with photographs — because otherwise the court could rule that towing was unnecessary.

#FuckCars