For those new to this column, we often give bonehead awards to local governments in the UK for abuse of yellow traffic lines. We decided long ago that the UK should not be allowed to have yellow paint.
So we created the “UK yellow paint bungle bonehead award” and today it goes to city workers in Edinburgh who, while Gordon Dickson’s van was parked in an apparently legal parking spot, came up to his van, painted yellow lines around it and then stuck a $45 parking ticket on the van.
“It is just stupid really and very bizarre,” says the outraged Dickson.
The Edinburgh city council refunded his penalty.
Scottish Daily Record 7-Nov-02
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Bonehead award two, a “government as good as it gets” bonehead award goes to Chicago, Illinois which is demanding that the now deceased Lisa Parker pay a parking ticket which was issued to her three months after her car was reported stolen saying that the only way the ticket can be dismissed is if she protests the ticket.
"It is definitely comical," says the son-in-law handling her estate. "I mean, how can you have a dead person protest the ticket? We feel our options are now just to either let it go or worry about a Denver boot on my mother-in-law's headstone."
NBC Channel 5 (Chicago, Illinois) 6-Nov-02
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Bonehead award three goes to an Austrian hot-chestnut seller who called in a bomb alert near his outdoor cart in the hopes that people would stand around in the cold to watch what was going on after police closed off the area and so would buy chestnuts from him, according to police who have caller ID.
Krone (Austria) via Ananova (UK) 7-Nov-02
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Bonehead award four, a “stupidest lawsuit in the world” bonehead award goes to a New Brunswick, Canada father who is suing the province’s amateur hockey association because his 16-year-old son was not given the “most valuable player” award. He says his son is now suffering psychological damage and so he is demanding
That the award be taken away from the player who received it and given to his son,
That his son now also be given the league’s playmaker award, which was awarded to another boy,
That his son be guaranteed a spot on the New Brunswick Winter Games roster
That he be given $300,000 for psychological and punitive damages.
The coaches vote for the MVP and their votes are not disclosed.
The association says that this isn’t the first time this has happened and they’ve always prevailed in court.
Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada) 07-Nov-02
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Today We Bestow Four Bonehead Awards 
