soon “LAPI” cars to automatically control city parking
Toulouse town hall wants “streamline parking” and “enforce common rules“in town: that’s why the city council will deliberate this Friday on the proposal to set up “LAPI” cars (automated reading of license plates) for control paid parking in town.
Regarding the instructions for use of these vehicles, it is unmarked cars equipped with cameras that automatically scan license plates. If your car is scanned and you have not paid at the parking meter, the machine immediately identifies the offense since when you pay, you enter your license plate number.
An idea that makes Patte d’Oie react
In the residential district of Patte d’Oie in Toulouse, the probable installation of such engines is causing a reaction. Hassan, engine on and parked in warnings on a paid parking space, does not hide his annoyance. In normal times, he pays his place but this time not: “for a minute, I’m not going to go find a terminal to pay, it’s a little stupid“, smiles the thirty-something. The idea of being checked automatically by a machine does not delight him at all:
It makes no sense. And then imagine the time that you go to look for a ticket, if the machine, the control car passes, you are not yet listed by the system, you will have to make complaints, “yes but no, but indirect I was going to look for a ticket a minute later“, in short, it adds to our anxiety!
A little further on, Catherine, another local resident proudly says, she doesn’t pay “never“child ticket:”who loses wins“she laughs. She ensures that this new system does not prevent her from continuing like this, since, she said,”it’s always temporary, to go get bread or see a friend, out of the question to put 20 cents in the parking meter each time“.
Local residents in favor of this implementation
Other inhabitants of the district welcome this measure more favorably, which must still be discussed Friday at the city council. Stéphane, home nurse, explains that “with the confinement, there was an artistic vagueness regarding parking and behind people have resumed bad habits“. His patient, Roberte, abounds:
I always see the same ones, these are cars that are parked all the time, that have their garage in the street, they don’t take a garage, they pay from time to time and that’s it.
The home nurse concluded: “there are no penalties, because if they regularly had the fixed fine of 30 euros, they would no longer do it“.
This is precisely what the town hall of Toulouse wants to avoid, by hunting sucker cars. If the city council gives the green light, the LAPI vehicles could be put into service in early 2022.