Some Aucklanders have received a nasty surprise in their letterbox: a parking ticket for an offense a few weeks ago.
Auckland Transport is using 20 cars to patrol the city with license plate recognition.
They can do the job of parking attendants, but it means the offending driver doesn't know they've been ripped off until the ticket arrives in the mail.
Since January, there has been a 30 percent increase in the number of tickets distributed through drive-by ticket officers.
Some commuters said this new way of issuing parking tickets was unfair and said they racked up hundreds of dollars in fines before they knew what hit them.
Josh Baxter is one of them; he was the first to admit that he and his colleagues in Parnell had not always followed parking rules.
They paid a few dollars at a time at the meter and moved their car to avoid being stabbed by parking attendants.
But when the license plate recognition cars started enforcing parking in the area, they quickly racked up hundreds of dollars in fines at once.
“I received ten tickets in the mail over the course of two weeks. They all came more or less a month after the actual date of the violation. You feel a little cheated and I know it's like you haven't paid, so fair enough But I suppose it's the lack of opportunity to know you've done something wrong.'
The fines cost $40 each, so Baxter expected a total of $400 – which he said was a lot of money to come up with all at once.
One of his colleagues received 13 tickets, he said.
“At the end of the day, no one likes paying for parking, but this specifically feels like a revenue collection exercise.”
Office workers RNZs Checkpoint The program spoken to in Auckland's CBD also felt that receiving parking fines in the post, rather than under the windscreen wiper, could be a nasty surprise.
“It's a shock to the system, it's always nice to know you'll be fined if you get the fine,” said one.
“It's a lot easier when it's just on your car and you know right away,” said another.
Auckland Transport's head of transport and parking compliance Rick Bidgood said the number plate recognition cars allowed parking attendants to cover much more ground as the city's population grew.
Bidgood said a cluster of suburbs, where 21 officers were needed to police on foot, only needed three drivers and one person to process the fines.
He had little sympathy for sneaky commuters who received fines in the mail.
“Who chose to park illegally? Was it the driver or is it the vehicle? So I think the lessons learned scenario: If you park in an area where you know you can't park for free, that's a opportunity you seize.”
Enforcing parking rules in the city's suburbs provided more parking for residents, Bidgood said.
The cars had been in use in small numbers for the past six and a half years, but Auckland Transport scaled up the operation to 20 cars late last year.
It was possible that they could opt out of mailing tickets of LPR cars in the future, he said.
“If we have the option to send it, via email or via text message, then we could certainly consider that – that would not be a problem at all.”
John Purcell, chairman of the Parking Association, said another reason for using number plate recognition cars was to protect security guards from abuse.
“It is a growing concern for road control authorities across the country that parking wardens are increasingly abused and involved in negative encounters.”
If commuters don't want to get unwanted fines, they should follow parking rules, he said.