Vienna - An Austrian woman has started a 500-day prison term after having ignored a host of parking tickets, a police official in the town of Graz confirmed Tuesday.

By ignoring 700 attempts by police to notify her about her parking violations in the past two years, the 38-year-old woman from Graz accumulated some 25,000 euros
(32,000 dollars) in fines which she was unable to pay.

In the end, the woman had no choice but to begin a police prison term equivalent to the fine on January 7, police jurist Herbert Mattersdorfer said, confirming Austrian media reports. The term is to be split into 42-day portions, with six months of freedom in between.

Although the woman's salary from her work as a local civil servant has been impounded by other creditors, there is still hope that she will not have to spend all 500 days in detention: "Her father is trying to come up with the money," Mattersdofer said. (dpa)