I need to know if you knew this and im really stupid

[SouthWestmom]

So we have those parking meters in all the shopping centres where you get a little yellow disc on entry, insert it and pay when you are done, and then it comes back out and you use it to exit.
Except you don't - it's not the same disc that comes back out. I absolutely never knew this and thought my disc went in, I paid, it updated to say I'd paid and then came out.

Today for the first time ever, a blue disc came out.

We used to have round things, yellow ones, I called them the fisher price car park thingy, my kids had a fisher price till and the discs reminded me of the yellow coins that came with it, I thought it was the same one that came out. Live and learn 😁

These op? (Hopefully picture attaches)

And yes chips they do look like the little yellow fisher price coins

Now I'm thinking of all the little discs I never said goodbye to properly

We have the little cards that come out for parking here, the only time I have seen a plastic disc/coin is at Manchester airport. First time I went through, I paid and didn't collect my disc after, all I had was the reciept. Got to the barrier and couldn't get out. The man at the other end of the help button was laughing and let me out.

Omg, we have yellow disks/coins it never occured to me it wasn't the same one 🤦‍♀️

I've never seen yellow ones. All of ours are blue. I'd always assumed you got the same one back too.

Some people must think the car parks near me use magic. They use tickets but when you exit you don't need to.put the ticket into the machine at the barrier - it just knows you have paid and opens as you drive up to it
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Obviously it is not magic, it uses ANPR

We have yellow discs at one of our main car parks in town. I wonder if you're local to me? I never knew it was a different disc that comes out, I just figured that it was the one I put in!

Never seen these discs. Except in a game of connect 4. Must be on a different version of the universe to you disc people.

Never seen discs for parking. We get boring paper tickets

Never seen discs for parking. I use my phone or get a paper ticket.

We have paper tickets, but when we get to the exit a little camera senses your reg plate and you dont need to put the ticket in to leave. The barrier opens as you drove toward it.

But definitely same paper ticket, I put mine in with a makeup stain on and got the same one out as i always thought it was a new paper ticket given back.

Who remembers the clockwork parking meters, that popped up a little flag saying "penalty"?

My dad said he once did a double-take when he saw somebody in uniform apparently chained up to one of those traditional parking meters. Then he realised that she was there to empty them, or wind them up, and that she had the key on a chain, like prison officers do.

@NaughtToThreeSadOnions yes those ones .

I'm in the same camp as the pp who didn't say goodbye.

And how weird that a blue disc has appeared amongst our yellows.

I'm in south east - discs seem popular here.

Slightly off topic but I live in Singapore and one of my favourite small pleasures about living here is that you can get a card that slots into a machine on your dashboard - you top it up and it will automatically deduct the right amount of money when you leave a car park, go through a toll, etc. So you never need to find a ticket machine or queue at a toll booth EVER. Straight in and out. Heaven!

I'm with you Noeuf!

I'd always assumed it was the same disc! I assumed that once it had been read for the time I'd been parked and I'd paid, it got 'wiped' so the exit machine knew I'd paid.

I've never seen tokens.

The car park in town near me went from tickets to ANPR, so you had to put in 3 letters of your car reg. then choose your car on a screen and it told you what to pay. No ticket involved, no barrier on the way out. Now it's gone back to tickets, but as a PP said, the barrier at the exit just lifts without the ticket being inserted. BUT, the pay machine just takes the ticket, not the car reg. How does it know who is leaving the car park if you don't have to confirm? That must be magic surely?

Never heard of discs for parking. I've missed out!

I'd always assumed there was some kind of magnet in the disc so it knew how long you'd been there? No idea it was a different disc!
We have a very old payment system in our local shopping centre, no card payments, some machines only take coins (not even notes) and I'd always wondered how these quite primitive plastic tokens could 'know' how long you'd parked for?!

The card tokens have a magnetic stripe which stores your in/out data so I assumed the tokens were similar

Have never seen the discs.
Is this proof of ‘discworld’?

We have discs too, just amazed my husband with this little snippet of information . The paper ones are the same ticket in our car park as it has your reg number on it.

I assume it's a weighted chip. otherwise people could use the same chip they hot on arrive to leave without paying. I would have thought it was a different chip, yes.

Loving the fact that you thought your little discs had brains and could work out how long you’d been parked

Limpshade Genuis idea! Does that work everywhere or just on whatever the Singapore version of county and local council car parks and toll roads?

@NaturalBornWoman - the ANPR reads your number plate and puts it on your entry ticket in machine-readable form. When you pay, the payment machine reads it and tells the exit gate that that number plate has paid. At the exit gate, your number is read, compared with the 'paid' list & the gate lets you out.