I have always done the same,,,in fact in one car park in our town everybody was doing it,,, even to the point of sticking the ticket on the machine,,,if no one was around............gues what though,, the council changed the machines ,, and now you have to type part of your reg plate in the machine
They really are such knobs! We haven't got machines like that. A warden stopped me once and tried to tell me I couldn't do it - I told him it was my ticket, I paid for it and would do what I wanted with it. Then I politely told him to have intercourse with himself
I bet he went of muttering abo