#trafficstories — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

Okay, to all of those who think of Germany as a leader in innovation and somehow believe we have good bicycle infrastructure (heard this on #TheWarOnCars podcast recently).

Here's what happens in #Darmstadt when your quarter finally becomes no-more-free-parking-zone (wait for it though!):

You get informed via flyer into your postbox but that's okay, I would've missed the details if I would have had to look it up on the website.
The flyer says:
✅ Everyone will have to pay 1,50 € per hour (yes, one euro and fifty cents per hour) to park their car (okay, for a maximum of two hours). EXCEPT:
✅ Car-owning residents can purchase an annual parking ticket for 120 € (yes, one-hundred-twenty).
✅ Independently of car-ownership, residents can purchase "guest tickets" for visitors comprised of a sheet of 9 day tickets and one week ticket for 20 € (yes, twenty). If you want to buy one, send an e-mail at lalalala @ lalala.de (no further instructions).

So, I did so, because we have my parents and in-laws over every now and then.

I write an e-mail, "Sehr geehrte... lalala, hochachtungsvoll lalala".

I get a very clearly hand copy-pasted reply to pay 20 € to the indicated IBAN.

I pay and wait.

13 days later, I receive a letter (okay, it's physical tickets to put behind the windscreen, and no hurry it's still a week until the new regime kicks in) with a hand-signed (sic!) cover page politely saying "Here're your tickets" and a perforated A4 sheet with nine blue and one red tickets, each *manually* stamped - I kid you not - because apparently a certificate (Urkunde) needs to hold a seal (Siegel) and some more stuff to be valid.

However: All 10 tickets, while in two different colours, have the exact same print on them stating "this ticket is valid from [enter date] to the following day at 12h00".

So, they handle the whole process manually. Then stamp the freaking tickets individually by hand with a tiny stamp. But they don't bother to check the print!?

But that's not the punchline!

It's not like this could just be a website where you type the license plate, date, verify your residential status using your 37€ ID card (Personalausweis) with RFID chip, pay online and print a freaking A4 paper with a large QR code on your own printer.

The punchline is the fact, that this sheet of 10 guest tickets is actually free. The 20 € you pay is what's called "Bearbeitungsgebühr" (processing fee) and well: Man, you get a show!

#TrafficStories #Darmstadt #digitalisierung