Parking inspectors… those dorks you see walking up and down the streets wearing a uniforms they appear to have held onto from their primary school days, complete with broad brimmed hats.

In a seemingly never ending battle against the clock, every day the general public battle these ‘to the second’ gatekeepers of our time.

For one Australian and his Ford Festiva, yesterday the war became all too much.

Mahmud Swalah-McDahrou was admitted to St Vincents Hospital with a broken leg, a broken bone in one hand, and a deep cut to his face after being assaulted while inspecting a car in an inner Sydney suburb.


The accused, Nektarias Houllis seems to have bitten (as in bit out a chunk of his face!) and punched the inspector. When a passer by intervened the inspector wound up on the ground with a broken leg.

…you try driving around a girls car all the time see how far your tolerance and patience lasts.

Now obviously nobody deserves this kind of crap on their job and I wish Swalah-McDahrou (McDahrou…seriously?) the speediest of recoveries but what gets me is the comments today from Ben Kruse, general secretary of the United Services Union.

USU general secretary Ben Kruse said the attack highlighted the need for a change in community attitudes.

“This is not about the law, it’s about community attitudes,” Mr Kruse said.

“We need to see a shift, a change in direction, so that an appropriate level of respect is brought towards these guys in the performance of their work.”


Somehow the actions of this violent moron are the result of a failing of the community to ‘respect’ Kruse’s precious parking inspectors.

Of course it could have nothing to do with the type of work they do or the various dodgy methods employed by inspectors to go about doing said work due to the high pressure placed on them by city councils.

The councils and union could sit down and address that or they could just blame the general public, demand some respect and carry on business as usual.

The United Services Union (USU) also wants a buddy system whereby rangers would work in pairs with back-to-base radio contact, to ensure similar attacks did not happen again.

Mr Kruse said discussions were now underway with local councils about adopting the buddy system and he said he hoped there would be new measures to ensure officer safety announced early in the new year.


Right. Because this type of gang system has worked oh so well with the public transport system. Whilst you’re officers might be safe (I’m sure there’s enough overweight rent-a-human-wall to share between the public transport system and parking inspectors), just ask anyone in Melbourne what their opinion is of ticket inspectors on our trams and trains.

You think community attitude of parking inspectors is low now? Prepare for community opinion to plunge subterranean with the introduction mobs of parking ticket inspectors running around.

A few months back I vented my frustration citing some experiences of my own. Back then the same union calling for a change in public opinion today was calling for their members to be armed with capsicum spray and batons due to a “lack of respect”.

We have a culture where councils are desperately relying on a consistent stream of revenue from parking fines which by rights should be hugely variable, desperate ticket inspectors pumping out fines wherever they can, threats on parking inspectors to issue fine quotas and an angry public who are getting increasingly frustrated with the entire process.

Then to top it off you have the United Services Union demanding officers be given tools to physically fight the public with.

Arming ticket inspectors is always going to be a paltry band-aid solution to a much deeper problem. In an industry that runs on one to two hour timeframes with a thirty second error margin, no lenience and the outset that everyone is a criminal the roots of these problems have simply got to be dealt with.


This was back in July and whilst the union seems to have dropped the arm our members like vigilantes stance, they still appear to have done absolutely nothing about the root of the problem.

Respect is earnt, you don’t just demand it and expect the public to comply. Whether it’s a few months down the track or a few years I can tell you now that aggression on the street and public opinion will not change until these root problems are addressed.

That is the councils are relying too heavily on the revenue generated by the inspectors and then the shady underhanded tactics used when this revenue does not come about ‘naturally’.

Despite relying less and less on my car (I haven’t even driven it this month), I still get that surge of anger when I see one of these ticketing clowns on patrol whilst I cycle around. Sure I’d never resort to violence, hell I wouldn’t even verbally abuse someone doing their job but the feeling it still very much there.

For some of the uneducated morons living in Australia this feeling translates into physical violence.

Mr Kruse said a survey of 250 rangers conducted by the USU just two months ago found 46 per cent had been physically assaulted in the three previous months.

Sixty per cent of those assaulted said the attacks were becoming more violent.


Sorry guys but it’s not up to the public to address your disastrous public image. That’s something you’re going to have to address on yourselves, just like every other business out there.


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