I'd be interested to know how much extra (unearnt) income is generated from these parking machines from the overlap between one car leaving (with unused time still running) and another entering and effectively paying twice for "x" minutes.
In many municipalities in Spain it is possible to set up parking payment via mobile phone and associated credit card to pay for on-street parking and then cancel unused time on returning to the car. There is also a "Phonecard" type prepayment system which works in a similar way. Parking wardens get very little confrontation in their jobs since about 40% of appeals succeed and they have a level of discretion which would be unthinkable - in my experience - in Britain. A warden once bunged me 20 cents of his own money to make up the minimum and on one occasion I was pardoned one wrong digit on my registration by a warden about to end his shift.
Another idea that is extremely popular in Spain is the 2, 3 or even 4 hour "window" of free parking at lunchtime.

Here we go again....yet another sad example of what our great brains in Wasteminster and London will do .Yes, surprise surprise, charge motorists over the odds so that they will not use their vehicles very much or at all.What a load of old rubbish ! Instead of being proactive by investing taxpayers money into improved transport infrastructure and vehicle technology like they should have been doing anyway. All they ever do is charge [tax] people in the hope that it will be self regulating.This form of "control" follows the same simplistic ideas which are always rolled out when there is any sort of problem which they are obliged to resolve.
The solution is very easy , if not hard to swallow for those motorists which would be effective, just stop all ICE vehicles from being used altogether from cities and large towns etc now.They did this way back in the 60's when the smog was so bad that thousands of people died or were seriously health impaired by the burning of fossil fuels for heating and industrial use, and the was no great issue with that at the time.the same goes for tobacco smoking which they say causes great suffering and death to those who smoke , as well as having a huge effect on the limited recourses of the NHS.What do they do....virtually nothing except increase the tax on tobacco and impose labeling standards etc on manufacturing. If ,like the exhaust emissions , they really wanted to do something about that, then they should simply ban it, like class A drugs and firearms etc etc....what on earth is their problem ?! [apart from being very weak and stupid of course].....end of rant.

Thing is, most 'poor sots' don't actually buy cars, they lease them, so it won't really matter. Hopefully (not likely, I know) people who buy their car, will do some homework 1st?

That'll be a first - probably why so many people (first and only timers here) write in and ask either a) questions that have been asked several times, some in the same week, and can't be bothered to use the search function (which is easy to use, same for standard search engines for info) or b) are just lazy and want others to do the hard work (no homework) or will do none at all/ignore any and post-sale blame everyone but them if the car isn't suitable for their needs....

There's a great Lexia diagnostics owners map on frenchcarforum.

Like GB, I'm much obliged for the online library tip, Doubleug (...WG, I geddit!). I actually logged on a few years ago to get a few e-books, didn't realise so many magazines were fully accessible. (Wonder what the licensing terms are - these publications must be feeling the pinch.)