[By Zhou Tao/Shanghai Daily]

Ask an average Shanghai motorist what is the hardest part of driving in the city and he or she will probably reply it's the limited parking space.

When you are in a hurry yet there is no parking lot in sight, your patience wears thin, you fidget in the seat, you swear.

It's not that parking lots are that scarce in the heart of the city. A major cause for the parking mess is that most facilities charge exorbitant fees.

Usually the rate is 10 yuan (US$1.50) an hour but it varies across areas and in some CBD areas, two hours' parking time can set you back more than 50 yuan.

Without parking meters to measure the time, haggling and altercations occur, sometimes over fees set at the whim of parking lot attendants.

An altercation turned into a tragedy a few weeks ago when an Audi sedan driver ran over a fee collector and killed her as he attempted to evade a 15-yuan parking fee.

Easy targets

The lack of affordable parking space has led motorists to park their cars by the roadside, which is free but not without risks of being fined. My father often asks me to remain inside the car when he's away. During his absence, it's my duty to talk the traffic policeman, should he approach, out of issuing a 200 yuan fine for illegal parking.

My father does this for a reason. Once we drove to a shopping mall and seeing the parking lot filled to its capacity, he parked on the sidewalk, and none of us stayed behind to watch out for incoming police. Barely an hour later when we left the mall, there was a long column of parked vehicles behind ours, each bearing a yellow ticket for fines on its windshield.

"Apparently some lazy cops are lucky enough to find so many easy targets in their rush to meet monthly quotas for fines," my dad fumed.

Just as Andrew Lam observes in his article about fees in San Francisco, ticketing and fines have evolved from a mere deterrent to a source of important revenues for the government. Exactly how they are used to ease the traffic jams and solve the parking conundrum that are the norm in megapolises like Beijing and Shanghai is a mystery to the public.