Encamp woman pays €100 parking fine after brief overstay while aiding injured mother

A resident of Encamp has paid a €100 parking fine but says she is outraged by the way traffic officers treated her after being sanctioned for exceeding the time limit in a 15‑minute space on Avinguda Joan Martí while accompanying her convalescing mother home.

She says the overstay was only about five minutes and was caused by a force majeure: her mother, who was hit by a car a month ago, has a broken pelvis and uses crutches. The woman says she had rejected parking in the communal lot at Arínsols because her mother could not make that distance on foot.

The daughter recalls that the same traffic officers had helped her mother after the accident. After bringing her mother upstairs, putting away their things and settling her, she estimates that 20–25 minutes elapsed and found the fine on return to the vehicle. She says she first tried to locate an officer to explain the situation, but none were present at that moment.

When she went to the Traffic Service to appeal, she says staff told her that without documentation proving a recent hospital discharge the complaint would not succeed and urged her to pay immediately, warning the fine would rise to €120 if she did not. She describes the response as “a total lack of humanity” and says she was very angry.

Fearing the appeal would be ineffective, she paid the €100 fine but filed a complaint to express her dissatisfaction, arguing the circumstances called for a more lenient approach. She adds that she knows others who have received fines and that she rarely complains, noting that on one occasion she spent four hours in a paid communal car park.