Parking enforcement officer

[5][6] On 9 December 2007, the mayor of Stockholm, Mikael Söderlund, announced that the tasks of the parking enforcement officers will be broadened to include fining graffiti vandals and litterers.

Trade union representatives say these officers are not prepared to take on new tasks, already stretched by metering vehicles, and that they fear the risk of violence.

Those authorities in England that invested in vehicles with onboard computer and camera equipment have also begun policing bus lanes.

[10] Their focus is to expedite flow of cars and pedestrians at problem intersections, where they will replace use of Toronto police officers in the same role.

Similar to Ireland, it is an offence in certain circumstances if the driver or person in charge of a vehicle refuses to provide their details when required to do so by a parking warden.

[12] The term 'parking warden' is considered to be a misnomer, as they deal with matters more than just parking, especially as the law also empowers them to enforce certain moving violations, such as unauthorised use of a special vehicle lane.

Their origins in the UK can be traced back to the work of Athelstan Popkess who in 1959 proposed the idea of "a body of men, eager for police work, but barred by height or age to deal with trifling motoring offences like illegal parking and obstruction"[14] to the Home Secretary Ernest Marples and his professional colleagues.

Accusations of overzealousness on the part of parking attendants is likely due to high pressure management focused around delivering a certain number of tickets per day, leading to allegations of corruption and illegality.

[24] Landowners and agents who pursue private parking charges through the courts do so on the basis of trespass the BPA[25] issue guidance to facilitate this through the use of onsite signage.

"[26] The term 'meter maid' was popularised in The Beatles' song "Lovely Rita", in which the male singer, smitten with a female traffic warden, recalls: On the NBC television comedy series Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, cast member Barbara Sharma was often featured as an overzealous meter maid (spelled Metre Made) who would ticket anything from baby carriages to trash cans.

In the 1984 BBC television drama Threads, a deputized traffic warden armed with a Self Loading Rifle is briefly shown keeping watch over an improvised internment camp for looters, following a nuclear strike on Sheffield.

[27] In the 2016 Disney animated film Zootopia the main character, Judy Hopps, is disappointed to be assigned parking enforcement duties, but decides to excel at her task.