A parking ticket was placed on my son’s car when he came to visit my wife and myself last Saturday.

My son had scraped the date, time of arrival, and year spaces correctly, but had omitted to scrape the month space. For this he was told the penalty is £70 – or £35 if paid promptly.

I could understand this severity if someone was persistently omitting to scrape the month space in order to cheat the system, by carefully preserving the ticket for the same date in another month. But this was a simple oversight.

I cannot help wondering if the extremely complicated instructions and fiddly forms are not deliberately designed to entrap the unwary and raise money rather than control parking.

The simplicity and economy of the previous system of tickets, which could be used on several occasions, had much to recommend it.

ROGER BIRCHALL, Plantation Road, Oxford