Drivers with a parking pass for people with disabilities have been getting tickets for parking their cars in spaces meant for disabled people, due to a new, electronic way of checking.
Brussels.Parking works with ‘scancars’, cars or scooters driving around scanning license plates to counter parking fraud. A scancar can check about five times more cars than a traditional parking attendant, but there have been problems with wrongly-sent fines in Brussels for several months, report Het Laatste Nieuws.
"This is a complex case," said Els Wauters, the spokesperson for Bart Dhondt (Groen) who is the Alderman for Mobility in the city of Brussels, to Bruzz. "The parking pass for people with a disability is linked to their names, not their licence plates, so the scancars cannot see that," she said.
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The parking passes for people with a disability are managed by the Federal Public Service for Social Security. "As a city, we have no access to the federal database. It is a problem à la Belge," she added.
People with a disability parking pass who get a ticket for parking in the wrong spot do not have to pay for them, said Bart Dhondt, the Alderman for Mobility in Brussels.
"We seldom have problems with this," said Sarah Jasmes from Parking.Brussels. "The scancars make pictures of the parked cars. In the office, staff members check these images before anyone gets a ticket. Usually, we take those cases out, but then the parking pass has to be clearly visible," she added.
Maïthé Chini
The Brussels Times
