Who was the biggest arsehole?

[Montegriffo]

Depends on who you think the fleas are.
Crime in areas that are covered in cameras falls significantly and arrest rates increase. Of course, this means that some crimes move to other areas until they also get cameras.
It's like the police, everyone hates them until it's your daughter who is dragged down an alley. Then you are on the phone demanding that they do something, including checking the camera records.
No one complained about surveillance when it showed Jesse Smollet was lying his arse off.
Maybe car park fraud doesn't reach the threshold at which the fuzz decide to expend their ever-dwindling resources but if it does you've got no one to blame but yourself.
I'd hope we'd all agree that driving past a school at excessive speed is unacceptable but we all moan when we get caught by speed cameras.
At the end of the day, it is your responsibility not to break the law. You may not like the law but it's no good moaning in court that you don't agree cannabis should be illegal if you get caught by cameras smoking a spliff in the park.
If you think it's worth the occasional fine to live a free life then that's up to you but it's not the camera's fault.

[Montegriffo]

Last year when I went to Dunstanbourgh castle on the Northumbrian coast with some juggler mates we had to use the English heritage car park and my friend waited for someone who was about to leave and asked her nicely for her ticket (it was only a quid).
I told him he was stealing money from the very people who maintain the castle we were just about to visit. He's a fucking cheapskate though so he used it anyway. I went and bought a ticket and put it straight in the bin.
Maybe I am an arsehole but I approve of the job they do, not for profit, to ensure that people like me get to wander around old ruins.

If someone aggressively demanded that you give them your unused ticket as you were leaving a council car park is that so much worse than someone aggressively demanding that you use their unused ticket when you decline their offer? If I wasn't bigger and younger than the guy in the car I may have felt intimidated by him, the bystander certainly seemed as if he would have escalated to the point of violence if I hadn't just walked away ignoring his taunts.

[Hastur]

You were the greatest asshole. The other two were responding proportionally to your level of assholery.

The car you describe is taxpayer funded, at least in part. The point, the meaning, the motive and purpose of a public good is that it is something the community give to each other. A gift from the public to the public, a payment in taxes to have a cheap carpark.

The first guy's attempted gift was offered in a spirit no less different. A citizen offering to cut the costs for a fellow citizen. If you disagree, fine, but pontificating about his offer being "theft" was extremely rude. If you, in even the calmest voice you have and without swearing, are being disrespectful to others, they don't have to be as "polite" as you in their reply.

I was merely informing him that it was illegal, he didn't appear to know that. The car park is surrounded by cameras so not only could I have been nicked for displaying a transferred ticket but he could have been nicked too. We were both in our cars and were therefore identifiable.
It was the bystander that I used the word theft to after he had butted in and used insults and swearing. He didn't seem to know it was illegal either. He thought it was ok because the driver wanted to give me the ticket.
If everybody did it then more council tax would be used to maintain the car park and that could cut money from some other public service.

Bjorn is right. You were the biggest asshole by starting to virtue signal. Calling him a criminal for going out of his way trying to do you a favour was totally unwarranted.

Asshole.

[Speaker to Animals]

Monte is right. Both the man attempting to conspire to steal from the state, and his homeless supporter should have been locked up for at least 30 days. How are we supposed to pay for Segway meter maids if people don't pay their fees?

[Fife]

Both of those criminals Monts told off are just more prototypical examples of Market Failure.

[Montegriffo]

Both of those criminals Monts told off are just more prototypical examples of Market Failure.

So, as a lawyer, would you have advised the driver that he was breaking the law or simply offered to represent him for free in any possible future prosecution?

[Fife]

Do you need some advice about your failure to turn these scofflaws in to the constable? Did you get license numbers or addresses when interacting with these crooks and malcontents?

This thread may assuage your mental pain for not doing your part to properly enforce the rules. As far as legal injury, I'm offering no legal advice in any respect here, but you might want to go ask a local solicitor about whether it is too late to turn yourself in.

[Montegriffo]

You were the greatest asshole. The other two were responding proportionally to your level of assholery.

The car you describe is taxpayer funded, at least in part. The point, the meaning, the motive and purpose of a public good is that it is something the community give to each other. A gift from the public to the public, a payment in taxes to have a cheap carpark.

The first guy's attempted gift was offered in a spirit no less different. A citizen offering to cut the costs for a fellow citizen. If you disagree, fine, but pontificating about his offer being "theft" was extremely rude. If you, in even the calmest voice you have and without swearing, are being disrespectful to others, they don't have to be as "polite" as you in their reply.

I was merely informing him that it was illegal, he didn't appear to know that. The car park is surrounded by cameras so not only could I have been nicked for displaying a transferred ticket but he could have been nicked too. We were both in our cars and were therefore identifiable.
It was the bystander that I used the word theft to after he had butted in and used insults and swearing. He didn't seem to know it was illegal either. He thought it was ok because the driver wanted to give me the ticket.
If everybody did it then more council tax would be used to maintain the car park and that could cut money from some other public service.

Bjorn is right. You were the biggest asshole by starting to virtue signal. Calling him a criminal for going out of his way trying to do you a favour was totally unwarranted.

Asshole.

So the way he was bibbing his horn, shouting out of his window and waving the ticket, while driving the wrong way round the one-way system at speed, wasn't virtue signalling? ''sticking it to the man''.
The bystander certainly thought it was. He went to great lengths to tell me how virtuous the driver was being and also showing how virtuous he was being for backing him up.

[Montegriffo]

Do you need some advice about your failure to turn these scofflaws in to the constable? Did you get license numbers or addresses when interacting with these crooks and malcontents?

This thread may assuage your mental pain for not doing your part to properly enforce the rules. As far as legal injury, I'm offering no legal advice in any respect here, but you might want to go ask a local solicitor about whether it is too late to turn yourself in.

I felt that informing them of the criminality of their behaviour was virtuous enough, do you think taking a snap of his registration plate would have helped to de-escalated the situation?
Maybe I'll try that next time, telling them that I'd had good legal advice that I should do so.

[Fife]