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If word gets around that EV parking spots are free for everyone when the charger is broken, chargers will suddenly become a lot more prone to breaking.
That's vandalism.
Yes, so they shouldn't create a strong incentive for it. People tend to break or ignore laws that they feel the majority doesn't like (see speed limits and minor tax/insurance fraud)
Disability parking spaces are respected despite no vandalism required.
You can't really "break" a disability spot and leave it "open to everyone" in the same way as an electric charger
Look, if someone wants to park in a charging space illegally, he doesn't have to break anything. But in my experience, there is less of that ("ICE-ing") than a few year ago.
Yes, because drivers generally feel compassion towards disabled people.
ICE drivers do not generally feel compassion towards EV drivers.
So what about when a charger is broken? What would you do if you parked to charge, get out to pay and plug, and you see the charger is broken? Do you stay to run your errands, or do leave to look for a new space? That's what I want to know.
German here: All public charging stations are labeled as: free parking during charging. That means if the charger is broken technically no one is allowed to park there.
I see no reason why the parking space should be left unused. The whole purpose is to charge, not to remove parking spaces and be a nuisance.
That is true. I only mentioned the regulatory truth. And i think if you park an EV there nobody would give you a ticket.
A reserved spot for an EV does not change when the charger is inop.
It actually does in this case I'm talking about.
Then why are you asking?
Do you agree?
No.
Just to be clear, you think a parking space with a charger, broken or not, is reserved for an EV. Correct?
If an EV spot with a non-working charger is no longer for EV's, that will only work to incentivize pieces of shit to damage chargers so they can park.
As I said elsewhere, a crook who wants to park illegally has no reason to also damage the station. "I was allowed to park there because I broke the charger". Yeah sure cute.
Is it charging parking or EV Parking? From an enforcement perspective, the space should stay as EV parking because it’s much simpler. ALPR is used commonly for parking enforcement and it’s not worth the hassle to reprogram it based on the status of the charger. In no scenario does it make sense that an ICE vehicle can park there.
If the space is reserved for vehicle charging, that needs to be clearly signed. If it is for EV parking in general then this conversation is moot. Unless there’s a sign, there is no way to determine that the space is reserved for a repair technician - or even if the charger is working. Changing street parking rules based on whether a dongle is working is problematic.
The only reason I see to reserve a space for EV is for charging. Unless there is a working charger, it makes no sense to me to prioritize EVs. The 3 possibilities I see when a charger is broken:
- The space is for anyone, like other spaces in the area (because a broken charger is a brick)
- The space is reserved for a technician.
- The space is for any EV.
I see different people having different opinions, which is why I need this discussion.
It is slightly ambiguous because if it is labelled as “for EV charging” and you have an EV parked there and it is not charging, you are supposed to vacate the spot. So - if the charger is broken, the spot should be vacant. I can’t see parking enforcement being able to really handle that though unless there’s a connection between charger and enforcement.
But in that case, an ICE vehicle should still never park there.
It’s akin to delivery-only parking on a bank holiday. You still can’t park there even though the shop is closed.
The entire issue: by-law, signs, reserved space, is built a charger that is working. The purpose of everything is to charge a car, not to prevent parking. Without a working charger, everything collapses and EV drivers are not affected at all.
The entire premise is built around the idea that the spot is reserved for charging. If the charger is broken, the simple answer is that nobody can park there, not that laws cease to apply and the spot can be ICEd.
The sidewalk is for walking and doesn’t have anyone walking on it, so I parked there.
Well if a charger is broken, it makes no sense to reserve the space for charging. A sidewalk analogy would be whether a sidewalk is "broken". If 50 feet, or 200 feet of the sidewalk was missing, people would consider parking there.
Yes, if the charger is broken, it does make sense to reserve the space for charging. To maintain the standard of it being for charging only. If it is reserved for charging, but the charger is broken, then no one parks there until the charger is fixed. Unless the charger is being permanently taken offline, then the space should revert to parking for anyone.
This is because the charger being broken is a temporary status. If it turned into a free parking spot whenever the charger were broken, even if people didn't vandalize the charger they could simply say "oh, I thought it was broken", or "it was broken earlier when I parked here".
I've seen chargers being left broken for over a year. In the meantime, there was no way to tell whether they'll ever be back online.
I see different people having different opinions, which is why I need this discussion.
I'm getting the impression that the only opinion thats different seems to be yours.
I probably should have posted this as a survey so as to avoid impressions.
What did the sign say?
Many of the public charging spots in my city say "reserved for EV charging only", which unambiguously means that you can only park there if you're charging. If the charger is broken, you can't charge there, so you can't park there.
That's ambiguous because users don't know if the case of a broken charger was considered or not, or whether repair is even scheduled.
How is that ambiguous? You can only park there if you're charging. If the charger is broken, you're not charging, so you can't park there.
It's only ambiguous in the sense that, you could park there, and run an extension cord to the closest building and plug in and now you're technically charging but not using the city's charging infrastructure as I'm sure they intended when they wrote that sign.
I precisely explained why it's ambiguous. Everything is based on the assumption of a functioning charger. Without that, everything falls apart, the sign, everything.
That's not ambiguity, that's you willfully misinterpreting a definitive statement.
I don't know what the sign that you parked at said, because you haven't told us. I do know that you're arguing against literally everyone in this thread trying (unsuccessfully) to get anyone to agree with you. Based on that, I'm guessing the problem wasn't with the signage.
I'm asking for opinions, not playground insults. You're ok with parking twice if a charger is broken and that's fine with me. I don't think that wasted time should be on you (and everyone else later that day, week, month, etc.), and I don't think a prime parking space should be left unusable indefinitely. But you do you.
Seems like it should be for the repair tech to do their job. But what if it's after normal work hours? Are these technicians expected to work 24 hours a day? In my town, after 6pm, and or on weekends, or when the shop is closed all that restricted parking becomes available for general use, mostly. Of course I ride a bike, even in the Winter, so there's always some place I can lock up. And when people ask me where to park, I have to shrug and say I don't really know.
That's what we were told (reserved for the technician) but this isn't written anywhere. When a user notes that a station is broken, they have to guess what to do because no where does it say a technician has priority.
If it's a public charging space, It's only supposed to be used for charging.
When you aren't charging, you leave and find a public parking space.
I would say that applies to all vehicles, if the charger is broken or not.
Maintenance vehicles are always a special acception. They park wherever needed to get things working again.
Makes sense but when it happens, you actually don't know what to do. Leaving a vacant space to drive around the area looking for another spot makes you feel like an idiot.
to drive around the area looking for another spot makes you feel like an idiot.
Sounds like a problem between you and your therapist.
I’d never heard a spot could become reserved for a technician. It makes sense but that kind of rule would need a lot of signage and public communication.
I think the rule should be “the technician can park in the spot. If someone parked there, the technician double parks and blocks them in until the repair is done”.
Not a bad idea except I think they'd block traffic. I think the technician is simply another worker trying to park on the street to do his job like anyone else trying to park. No one seems to know yet if they actually need to plug the cable anywhere.
this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2025
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