Traffic tales

On October 7, I parked my car on a side street between The Plaza and Ocean Mall in the Clifton area of Karachi. The car was parked on one of the dirt surfaces that fill in as parking spots in the city due to the lack of formal, legal parking. As it happens, the unplastered wall near this spot had a hand-painted sign that read ‘No Parking’. Since the sign did not exactly look official, I elected to ignore it. I returned about 90 minutes later to find that my car had been towed by the traffic police.

I went over to the station and was asked for my phone number and driving licence, which I gave, and was told that I had to pay a fine of Rs1320. However, the officials did not give me a receipt and said I will get an SMS confirming the receipt of the fine. It has been over two weeks and no receipt/SMS has been received. I would really like to know if the money I paid ever reached the Sindh government and whether it really was illegal to park my car where I had.

Hasan Raza

Karachi