Belgium parking ticket

[LemonParty]

Hi - a trip to Belgium at the weekend resulted in a ticket for parking in a bay with a 2 hour free parking limit on it. Seems that the ticket (for 30 Euros) suggests that we didn't display our arrival time on a cardboard clock on the dashboard.

What's the consensus with these? Okay to ignore? Will we be thrown in prison if we return without paying?

[E-bmw]

So did you display your arrival time?

The real question for me would be am I likely to go back in the same car?

Also, was it a ticket stuck on the car? As in, they don't have your details.

[jm doc]

E-bmw said:

So did you display your arrival time?

The real question for me would be am I likely to go back in the same car?

Also, was it a ticket stuck on the car? As in, they don't have your details.

The real question is are you going to drive into Belgium through a Belgian port/passport control? If not there is no way they can identify that your car is in the country, so just bin it.

[Wish]

I bin mine regularly in Belgium.
I dive a car with a 11AA style number plate with no country ID and have never been stopped. All parked in the same town.

[Truckosaurus]

LemonParty said:

Hi - a trip to Belgium at the weekend resulted in a ticket for parking in a bay with a 2 hour free parking limit on it. Seems that the ticket (for 30 Euros) suggests that we didn't display our arrival time on a cardboard clock on the dashboard.

What's the consensus with these? Okay to ignore? Will we be thrown in prison if we return without paying?

I got something similar in Ypres. Same free parking space (2hr limit) but because I didn't have the paper disk to mark when I'd arrived I got a ticket in Flemish suggesting I did a bank transfer to the city council for a fine.

I ignored it. Mainly because I don't think I was parking against the spirit of the parking rules and I'm unlikely to return to Belgium in that car.

[ferret50]

UK reg car?

Or a hire car?

Former ignore, the 'jobsworth' is just doing his/her job.

Latter, the hire company is/will be involved so it may be easier to cough up....or suggest to the hire company that they really should have provided the cardboard clock.....and instruction on how/where to use it.

[LemonParty]

Thanks all. It's our own UK registered car. We do plan to return to Belgium at some point, but will be driving from Calais so unlikely to go through any maned border crossings.
I'm still in two minds, whether to pay for peace of mind, or leave it as we're unlikely to be tracked down.

[matrignano]

This parking disc thing they use in some Northern European countries irritates me, a lot!

How are you supposed to display your arrival time if you don't have one of those?

[bigandclever]

matrignano said:

How are you supposed to display your arrival time if you don't have one of those?

Well, you're supposed to have one, in Belgium at least A better moan would've been if OP had one from, say, France and it didn't have the Dutch, French and German translations on it like the Belgies require and he got a ticket for that.

[Truckosaurus]

I assume you might be able to get away with putting a piece of paper on your dashboard saying "Parked at 12:00" if you are clearly in an out-of-town car.

[Boxster5]

These disc parking schemes are quite common, even in the UK.
I have a few of them as I foolishly thought that you need the one that is relevant for that particular town or district. Stupid me - so I have one for North Yorkshire, Northumberland, Guisborough & Barr in Alsace, France!
I’m pretty sure that ANY blue parking disc will suffice.