To have given the woman my parking ticket?

[Whereareyougoingmouse]

I went to a car park today and put 4 hours on the car. we only ended up staying 45 mins as my DD had a major melt down which couldn't be tamed so we decided to head home.

As I was exiting the car park I saw a young mother with a small baby rifling through her purse stood at the ticket machine. I drove up to her and asked if she would like my ticket as it still had 3 hours 15 mins left on it and shame to go to waste. As I was saying this an elderly lady walked past and shouted "That's illegal". I said pardon and she said "You stupid cow what you are doing is illegal" and walked off. The young mother shouted after saying how rude she was but the woman carried on walking laughing and shaking her head.

I was genuinely shocked by this. I've never heard it's illegal to give someone your ticket and I've been given countless tickets in my 15 years of driving. I looked at the board and it said nothing about it.

WIBU to offer the lady my ticket?

It's not in the Highway Code and there's no Parliamentary Law to say it's illegal. Or even a ECHJ law (not that it will affect us for much longer).

So, I would carry on doing the least wasteful thing and pass on unused time ...

We need more social cohesion, not less!

She probably thought you were giving her your DD.

I don't really have an issue with passing on a ticket with some time left on it. I can see how that might feel like an altruistic act, however if the car park is run by your council then your taxes (offset by the fees) pay to run it. If you give your ticket to another person then they are not paying for a ticket so reducing the income made. If enough people do it then that penalises everyone living in the area, either because the council has to subsidise parking more or loses income that could be spent on services, or because as a result they raise the prices of parking or have to spend money converting to number plate entry systems.