Cardiff Council made nearly £2 million in parking fines last year

In the financial year 2017-2018, Cardiff Council issued 59,669 parking tickets. That works out as more than 160 fines given out on average every, single, day and a sweet £5,000 a day.

If you were one of those people that brought your car to uni this year, congratulations, you've probably made at least 10 new friends and had many more adventurous Saturdays than most of us. However, for many of you drivers, the little yellow envelope with bold black writing is a real fear. A fear which will no doubt be made worse now.

There's no denying Cardiff Council are on the ball with fines as they deployed 54 parking wardens to the streets of Cardiff last year. According to figures, none of the Cathays streets have made the council the most amount of money. Nevertheless, the money made from Woodville Road and Wyeverne Road still amounts to a lot more than our student loans can afford, with Woodville at £8,123 and Wyeverne at £8,318.

You thought your worst fear of bringing your car to uni was the parallel park and endless glass on the streets, how wrong you were. Keep a look out for those lovely, happy parking wardens in their lovely, happy uniforms. It's a shame they're not Parking Pataweyo.

It's understandable to get angry if you've been issued a ticket, but after you've calmed yourself down and resisted ripping the ticket up, here are five useful tips and tricks to avoid those scary yellow tickets:

1. Don't park on drop down curbs.

2. When leaving your car, make sure your crappy, paper parking permits don't get blown away.

3. The streets without marked bays are permit free.

4. Despite the desperation to just drop your car anywhere, don't park in front of someone's garage.

5. Keep your eyes on the road and don't get distracted by the 100 Fiat 500 girls ahead.

Happy driving chaps x