German Sabine got p-bot - forced to defend against Swedish police in the Supreme Court

One of every hundreds of stories that has come under Plus review of parking fines is German Sabine Middendorfs. In the summer of 2018, she and her family were on a car vacation in Stockholm.

When Sabine parked, she paid for herself via sms and then indicated the car's registration number in the way she was used to from Germany. German registration numbers have no hyphens, but according to Sabine, they usually use it to signal the space between the letters and numbers when entering their registration number.

This is what Sabine did during her Sweden visit. She received a confirmation of the payment and believed that everything was peaceful and delighted.

But four hours later Sabine found a p-bot in the windshield:

Sabine disputed the fine to the police, but received no hearing as the police believe she had entered the wrong registration number. So Sabine took the case to the district court, where she got it right.

The police then appealed the case to the High Court, but Sabine also won there. Here Sabine thought it would end, but the police again appealed, and the Supreme Court has now chosen to raise the case.

- I don't understand how you can make so much trouble for a p-bot, says Sabine, who had to translate several Swedish government letters via Google translate.

Sabine is not alone in this. In April, the Supreme Court will raise two more similar cases.

One of the cases concerns a Dutch car. Dutch registration numbers contain hyphens, but the motorist had entered the number without. In that case, it was the police who won the court of appeals.

The police explain their actions by giving the court judgments unclear information and the need for guiding judgments. According to the police, they also have no legal right to judge whether a hyphen is an insignificant thing or not.

However, Sabine Middendorf thinks her parking fine has been given far too large proportions.

- I can't even imagine how much this has cost the Swedish state, she says.

Are you also upset about a p-bot? Or do you have insight into the parking industry? Here you can tip Plus reporter - and follow the review!