There are many things you too easily get used to when you are a Londoner living in the country. You soon forget that they are there. The fresh air, for instance, and the space; that for more than half the year you can simply live outdoors. Then there is the freedom of one's children, both to play outside and to live in and out of each other's houses without adults interfering all the time. There are the sunrises, the sunsets, the mist and the colours, the stars at night and the seasons - I think I had forgotten there were seasons, proper seasons, not just the two you come to know in London: “rainy” or “hot”.
All these things I sometimes have to remind myself to notice again, after three years living out of town. But one thing I always, always notice, without fail: no traffic wardens. Not a trip goes by to the local shops when I fail to recognise the blessing. So seared on to my consciousness is the memory of the ghastly part of everyday life that these people play in London, that it has never left me.
And I write as an erstwhile defender of traffic wardens, essential public servants... keep the streets for everyone... yadda yadda. I always assumed they had them everywhere. They don't. And god, the relief of living without them. The relief of knowing you can pop your car on a yellow line for ten minutes, that the granny ahead of you in the queue, chatting with the post office staff, isn't unwittingly going to land you with a £60 fine.
Or that there isn't someone waiting with a little camera to film you illegally double-parked while you load a child and luggage into the car: first she sticks the camera in your face, then she steps back to record the number plate, steps back farther to capture the car's position in the street, then she's in your face again, then steps back again to film you carrying a child into the car, and some luggage, then she steps right up close to film the tax disc, and back to get the number plate once again. This happened to me. By chance, I was loading the car to move out of London: a fine parting lesson it was.
The thing is, in London, you put up with these things. You put up with them as part of the glorious but often infuriating experience of living in the city. And only when you no longer have to live with them do you realise quite how bullyingly intrusive they were.
In my local town in West Sussex, we had a traffic warden once, someone from the police. He was the talk of the town, front page news. Everybody recognised him. Opinion was divided as to whether it was a good or bad thing having a traffic warden. And he was a nice one - cheerily letting you off if he could. I can only remember one person getting a ticket in perhaps six months. There was another row when he was redeployed elsewhere. I remember a protesting headline in the local paper along the lines of “Town loses traffic warden”. Well, there's always someone who will complain, I suppose. I gently enjoyed the whole mini-drama as a reminder of an innocence lost in London long ago.
And now the rest of the country is to lose it too. Giving power to councils to replace actual traffic wardens with cameras is an invitation to help themselves. In London, a man walking up and down the street holding a camera is financially efficient because of the number of tickets he issues. That isn't true in quieter towns, hence the loss of our traffic warden. But stick up a camera and it will pay for itself, many times over.
For people whose deepest experience of the intrusive state is the apologetic 50p fine from the library for a late book, or the request from the GP that you bring little Charlie in for a second MMR jab, the new powers to trap will come as an angry shock. As will the size of the fines: motorists outside the capital do not have the spare cash that London drivers, who tend to be fairly wealthy, do. I love the fact that someone somewhere thought rebranding parking wardens as “civil enforcement officers” would do something to counteract the effect.
For there is, as any Londoner knows, something depressingly bullying about people willing you to trip up, wanting to catch you out. And a penalty notice by post, one that threatens another penalty if you do not pay up at once - what a dismal, soul-destroying thing that is. You cannot remember where you were that day, you do not recognise the street, you get the A-Z, you vaguely recall a bus pulling out and forcing you to swerve, and you're not sure so you shrug and pay up. It feels like extortion. Often, it is extortion.
It won't happen immediately, everywhere. But it will creep in around the country, as cash-strapped councils discover new ways to try to make ends meet. Catching unwitting motorists stopping where they shouldn't is an easy revenue-raiser.
The new parking watchdog, Caroline Sheppard, said this week that appeals tribunals will give motorists the benefit of the doubt. But the only way to ensure that councils use the power fairly is to penalise them. At the moment if motorists appeal a ticket, they get no expenses for the time and effort involved. I remember once having to buy a disposable camera, take pictures, get them developed, send them to the council, fill in an appeal form, fill in another appeal form, book a hearing, send more papers and more pictures - and then the council decided to drop the case. For the time wasted, it would have been cheaper just to pay up. Now why shouldn't a council that turns down a first appeal from a motorist, and loses a subsequent appeal or fails to contest it, have to pay compensation for the time and hassle involved, or at least a fine for its dishonesty?
I suspect the Government knows what it might have unleashed here; hence the promises of leniency from Ms Sheppard. It doesn't matter that it's the councils issuing the tickets, it will be Labour that gets the blame. Overweening State... hidden tax... you know the stuff. Ministers have been talking about the need to reconnect with voters. Fifty quid fine because an old lady was having a chat in the newsagents? Thwack. That connects.
I would love to see campaign of civil disobedience waged against this endemic, life-sapping, enforcement culture.
As a passive, lawful and - for far too long now - suppliant citizen, I will be delighted to take my son's baseball bat to any cameras that appear at my local shopping parade.
paul, kingston,
I became an expat less than a year ago. I miss London but find that the news of late make me feel almost glad I am away. It is very sad! It looks as if the country took a turn for the worse since dear Tony Blair resigned - the parking crisis, the property crisis, the banking crisis, the domicile issues ... Is it just a coincidence? Perhaps it is, but I will find it difficult to vote Gordon Brown back into government unless there is a marked improvement.
Joe Farrugia, Putney, London
In November 2007 I received a Penalty Charge Notice for £120 for allegedly parking illegally in Haringey, an area that I had never visited. I drove there to be certain that it could not have been me, and then wrote explaining that it was certainly not me nor my car. I asked for a copy of the photograph and of the notice which should have been attached to the car. A month later I received an acknowledgement. Three months later I received a letter cancelling the PCN "due to the parking attendant noting the incorrect vehicle registration". I was not prepared to let the matter rest there and took the same view as Alice Miles in her article on 2 April. I sent an invoice for £152-80 to Haringey Parking Services to cover the cost of my time in driving from Pinner to Haringey and back (three and a half hours in the rain) plus the cost of 32 miles at 40p per mile.
Would they have admitted their "mistake" if I had not protested? Would they have cancelled the PCN?
E. Simon, Pinner, UK
Are you suggesting that London parking enforcement should be the same as some sleepy, little town?
That would be great - you could just stop by on double yellow lines in the west end and come back after a spot of shopping. You could double-park in the rush hour and it wouldn't affect anyone else at all. You could even park outside work all day and not have to worry about walking too far. Unfortunately London is not a village, but it does have more than it's fair share of idiots,
I don't get the point of the article.
S Dynan, Oxford,
Using hidden camara's to enforce parking regulations to me is the police state gone wild. To put their instalattion into the hands of (often anti car) money grabbing local officials is just madness. I believe the public will take electorial action againt the perpertrators of this kind of nonsence - Councils should think about that when looking for clever new ways to raise funding. Big Brother is not a welcome figure in British coulture.
Peter Scot-Simmonds, Cheltenham, Glos.
Bo one seems to be considering another possible by product of the new parking rules. Expect an explosion of yellow paint to hit all roads near you soon as double yellow lines and junction boxes appear all over the place.
Then Mike of Birmingham, how simple will it be to park legally?
They'll be booking people for stopping at traffic lights next.
Tony Ford, Stockport, England
These cameras to catch motorists parking illegally must pick up more information that is needed. I believe this to be even more of an invasion of privacy what else can these cameras see and what else are they watching. From a very concerned citizen.
Darren Clarke, Liverpool, UK
How smug an article is this? I work in a small shire town. We used to have a traffic warden, who gained notoriety for issuing too many tickets! Now, we don't have one, and boy, can you tell! Cars parked on the pavement, double yellow lines ignored, people parking across other people's driveways - total and utter selfishness. The attitude now seems to be "I'll park where I like, so what are you going to do about it?" And when you come out of the office to drive to an appointment to find some kind soul has parked across the car park entrance, you say "where's the traffic warden when you need one?"
Unfortunately as a nation we are not sufficiently disciplined or thoughtful to be trusted to park properly.....traffic wardens, I'm with you all the way! If you don't want to be fined, don't park illegally. And, before I get accused of smugness myself, yes, I do have to pay up to £8 per day to park....It's called being a car owner, not a selfish sod!
Paul Tweddle, Coventry,
Delete "cash-strapped" because it implies that the condition is involuntary; Insert "over-spending" in its place because they are simply too profligate to live within their means.
When the law makers become the minority and the law breakers the majority, then the law makers had better be able to run - very fast indeed.
Richard Cooper, Dunstable,
Labour believes that increasing parking fines by taking advantage can boost public spending and good for economy!
In Westminster, 2/3 of parking fine appeals are successful! means councils are allowed to keep issuing wrong tickets at least 2/3 of times! where else this can be allowed? How can local government issues wrong tickets 2/3 of times!?!?
jon sangtani, london,
When I read the posting from Hugh Bonsey, Salisbury, UK, who said that the Seattle parking meters were all joined up, and you could pay for extra time ahead of time, I saw the light. This is just a computer software problem. Make the software smart and sensitive to the needs of the people, and everything is solved. No need for hatred against the government, incitements to law-breaking, insults against "break-dancing" traffic wardens (wot are you on about, Karen of Worthing?), it can all be solved by software, in the same way as Tesco finesses its products to the needs of its customers. I have seen the future, and it works.
Wilf, London,
How I agree with Alice and her "relief of knowing you can pop your car on a yellow line for ten minutes"! Quite right too. The sooner everyone in London can reclaim their historic rights, the better for everyone. I personally can't wait for the time when all the streets are clogged by right-thinking motorists! God bless you Alice!
Ricky, Bakewell, UK
The title "civil enforcement officers" suggests the rest are either "uncivil" which is often the case or that the police are now "military" in which case "be warned".
Richard, Buenos Aires, Argentina
If you double park in a busy London street then you deserve everything you get. Why should the traffic back up and block the entire road just because you can't be bothered to find a suitable place to load up your car.
Get over the 'penalising the motorist' atitude..if you park wherever you please in a busy city then you are the one penalising other motorist..
S Smith, Loughton, Bucks
Mike from Birmingham. I am totally with you on illegal parking. They should get fined. However, if you look at a lot of the postings, it appears that parking tickets are issued wrongly, extremely to the letter of the law etc.
The fact that over half of all appeals are successful, and that when the cases come to court, the councils then drop the case backs up the assertion.
ltsao, London,
Because of this mentality I don’t see me visiting any of our cities, particularly London, ever again. If I owned, or had interest in, any retail operation I would be very concerned that this will drive potential customers away.
Bob, Warrington, Cheshire
The UK is rapidly turning into something scarily resembling Nazi Germany with endless rules about what you can or cannot do, eat, drink, smoke etc. And instead of camps to intern and punish offenders, this Government just cripples us with fines and rising taxes and costs. It is a disgrace and Gordon Brown should be ashamed of himself .
susan , glasgow,
In Montreal you can pay for extra time on your parking space from any parking meter in the city centre - they're all connected!
Why can't we do that here?
Hugh Bonsey, Salisbury, UK
I left London after a six year stay and have to admit it was a bit of a wrench - it ain't all bad. But whenever I headed North, and got to the top of the Edgeware Road, I felt as though I was emerging from a cavern, blinking into the sunlight.
In many ways it's "The Land That Time Forgot" - rented housing, public transport, little Hitlers, interminable queues, no disposable cash (despite inflated salaries) - suddenly you're back in the 1950's. Ee, it's grim down South.
Ken Leyland, Liverpool, U.K.
I also live in Worthing West Sussex. Unlike John, (above) i was loading outside my shop (totally legally) A red faced, deranged, nut-case jumped out of nowhere telling me he was going to ticket me. I showed him a council "pass" which entitled me to deliver to my premises. He slapped the piece of paper and told me it was "wrong". I then had close up photos of my face taken because i disagreed with him. He told me he "was only doing his job". A swift complaint to the council had these photos deleted (so they said!) and apparantly the "nutter" repremanded. Surprise, surprise, three weeks later, there was Sunny Jim again, pen, paper, camera and walkie-talkie in hand scribbling a ticket out and telling me he had been watching my empty vehicle for ten minutes.As i had only just driven up this was rubbish and i told him so. He started break-dancing on the spot and radioing for back up. Unfortunately for him, my CCTV cameras had recorded the entire incident and proved him to be a total liar!
Karen, Worthing, Sussex
This will, as you suspect, be a disaster for the government, which has failed to realise that motorists and voters are one and the same. Bring it on, I say.
Jon Anderson, Guildford, UK
In a grossly over-crowded island we must have restrictions to make life easier for everyone. I am a car owner but avoid towns and cities wherever possible, using public transport insstead . Any journey by bus will show how inconsiderate many motorists are, including regularly "blocking" bus lanes etc. The many people on a bus have greater rights than the solitary driver in a car =- and that's not accounting for the environmental aspects.
BENBOW, Andover,
I don't believe fines are the biggest problem. the private companies that roam the streets in search of cars to tow away and charge you excessively for that are the real nuisance!
I frequent London to visit friends over the weekend. and I usually come by car.
Last weekend after parking in a street at night I returned at 11 in the morning to find the car gone. It cost me the better part of the day and 260 pounds to get it back. which I find rather excessive.
Perhaps they don't expect owners of foreign reg plates to pay fines so they get towed. but I think it's a terrible way to treat visitors!
Rindert, Rotterdam, Netherlands
People who say that everyone should follow the rules would have a point if ordinary people had any say over what the rules were.
I am fortunate to have off-road parking outside my house, but I don't object to people parking anywhere they can in my residential area at the weekends when everyone is at home, as long as it is not across someone's house.
Yet we have traffic wardens visiting the area at 8am on a Sunday morning just so they can fine people who are not really causing any problems while they sleep.
When do WE get a say about how we want our country run? It seems that none of the councillors who stand for local government actually care about local people, or they would ask us what we want.
James, Maidstone,
...motorists outside the capital do not have the spare cash that London drivers, who tend to be fairly wealthy...
Can someone please offer me a raise so I can stop being the only London driver that is not loaded with excess cash.
Julian, Twickenham, UK
Challenge your tickets. Many are wrongly issued, do not comply withthe statutory regime or are issued in respect of road markings which do not follow their statutory regime. See pepipoo.com for more help.
Ignore the "do not park illegally" crowd.
Andrew, London, uk
Oh dearie me - let's all 'pop' our cars on yellow lines for 10 minutes and then stand back and watch the traffic chaos. This article sums up in an instant much of what is wrong with modern day living. It's because many of us decide we can do exactly what we want, exactly when we want (regardless of any rules) that civility, respect, courtesy and rule-abiding are now regarded as quaint and slightly risible. AM's presumptions that this is all new are equally inaccurate. I too am a West Sussex resident and have been caught with hefty traffic fines twice in the last 15 years for...... parking illegally (or more accurately not coming back until after my ticket expired). Pay up Guv, you've broken the rules. Fair cop I say.
John, Worthing, UK
The self satisfied ex pats on the web are right;
Londoners need a revolution to reclaim the slender gaps between housing estate and Tescos as our own property - so what if its messy and crowded;
London evolved to be busy.
Parked cars slow traffic.
It is no faster/easier to drive into London than 20 years ago.
You who say "....well don't break the rules" are not living on the same planet as me.
Mark, London,
I had a parking fine for parking in my own street despite being parked completely and utterly legally and with a valid permit.
I appealed the decision and had my appeal rejected - I had a hectic work schedule for the next couple of weeks so it was less hassle to pay up than to take the appeal further.
Now tell me how that isn't blatant revenue raising?
Oh, and I often park around Ealing and you can see the wardens waiting by parked cars for the parking restrictions to kick in - yeah, it's legal but is it entirely fair? I think not....
Rob, Ealing, UK
Following the parking rules is a fine idea - provided there is somewhere to park legally. What provision is there in this legislation to provide parking spaces in the first place? None. Councils are free to impose any restrictions they want without providing an alternative.
How many small and market towns will suffer closure of small businesses because it is easier and less risk to drive an extra few miles and use a supermarket car park? If the fuel costs less than the fine, its exactly what most of us will do.
This policy will be a disaster for business and for the environment. It will also hit the local councils because the businesses rates fund their town hall budgets and will dry up as a result of the accelerated mass movement away from local shopping.
KR, Stockport,
I can see the point being made by those who say that the rules are there to be obeyed, and you only have yourself to blame if you get fined/clamped etc. However, with regard to those who have been penalised by enforcement officials who have watched them parking illegally, and then taken enforcement action, surely these people are complicit in the offence? If the real aim of their jobs was to keep traffic flowing freely, they would prevent the offence taking place to begin with - but where would be the profit in that?
Homer, London,
I have never got a parking ticket yet - if you are careful and avoid parking where it restricted you too will never have a ticket. Almost all parking restrictions make sense in terms of other road users convenience and safety.
Arnold Ward, Weybridge, Surrey, UK
I feel sorry for the few narrow-minded commentators here who stomp their feet saying, follow the parking rules or be damned!
The day will soon come when these draconian big brother fines move on from motorists to other areas and affect their lives -only then will they change their tune..too late!
The worse purveyors to date? In London of course
Red Ken and TFL - the least democratic organisation in the western world...
Mark, London,
Excellent article - I look forward to the day when my career allows me to move to the country. I have lived in London all my life and it saddens me to say that I find my freedom increasingly curtailed by rules and regulations. I am currently strenuously fighting TfL on two parking fines (one of them involves me paying for them to provide adequate proof of the alleged offence which doesn't seem right) and I agree that the system is cynically built around catching people out.
Laura M, London,
Everything in this country is aimed at extracting money from its citizens. Where I catch my train they have double yellowed all the surrounding streets so that most people have to use the car park (those that can get in that is - it's relatively small). To help the problem, the car parking fees have jumped from £3 to £5 a day. Meanwhile, the people who live in the local streets who used to complain about commuter parking are now up in arms because the lack of parked cars allows traffic to bomb past their houses at 50mph, so no doubt some traffic calming measures will be introduced at great expense to do the job that the parked cars used to do for nothing!
Paul, London,
For heaven's sake, Alex Lee of Carshalton, this government doesn't hate cars and their drivers. It's negative attitudes like yours that prevents any government from bringing in really effective measures for curing congestion, such as electronic road pricing. I bet you signed the moronic petition to the PM to scrap the plan. There's no hope for a rational transport system until people like you start thinking for a change. Don't you ever get caught in a traffic jam?
Benjamin, London,
I hate paying for parking, who doesn't? There are some very simple old fashioned solutions. Walking and public transport.
Why not park where you can and walk to the shops, getting some much needed exercise at the same time? People are lazy they want to be able to park right outside the place they wish to visit. This one answer to obesity.
plato, ely, uk
What about the number of "Revenue Protection Officers" who capitalise on Oyster/TravelCard/Train Ticket confusion and make, like Traffic Wardens, similar commission based profits?
Ian, London, London
My council tax is upwards of £250 per month and I do not park illegally.
Relying on people to break the law to raise revenue is highly risky and not particularly lucrative.
Looking for other motivations than ensuring the safe flow of traffic is the first step towards paranoia.
Richard Boyce, Haywards Heath, West Sussex
And if the council lose the appeal, and have to pay costs, where does that money come from? The way forward there is personal liability shared between the councils chief elected and permanent staff. If the council muck up, a politician and senior government official get walloped with a fine or jail for it. Actually, that sounds like a good suggestion at national level too.
Andrew Fanner, Cowplain, UK
Sorry, but I have little sympathy for you on this subject. Where I live we have seen an exponential increase in parked cars & are seeking to increase parking restrictions on our local roads. What were, less than 5 years ago, clear streets that were easy to drive down, are now clogged with parked cars. Blocking corners & junctions, making it difficult for buses to get down the streets. Bring on the yellow lines, that's what I say.
Christopher, Southampton,
I departed your shores (as I like to think of it) a brain drainer some 20 years ago. At the time we lived in London and I was forced to spend up to 4 hours a day in traffic. At the time my wife and I made a plus and minus list of leaving Britain for good. Amazingly enough, traffic and everything connected with it (cost and aggravation) was top of our list of minus Britain and this over 20 years ago, how on earth anybody lives in one of your cities today without living on pills is beyond us. Where we live we have almost no considerations of parking nor traffic jams or so rare as to not appear on our radar.
I feel genuinely sorry for anybody still living there and subject to your urban terrorism of all sorts.
Ripsnorter (a very happy ex-pat), Málaga area., Spain
What a silly article. You are causing an obstruction by your selfish parking and deserve to be fined. It's supposed to be a deterrant but my guess is many people have more money than manners
Dave, Cardiff,
This hateful goverments hatred of cars and their drivers is beyond belief, so as a way of getting at us by not being able to ban the car is to kill us motorists in any other way bu making driving a painful exercise.
Please vote them out and get in people who are motoring moderates and not these labour morons
Alex Lee, Carshalton, UK
As Jamie and Mark said between them.
Exceeding your prepaid time on a meter or in a car park could certainly be enforced less aggressively, purely because it's often impossible to be sure in advance how long something is going to take (even if there isn't a granny in front of you in the post office queue).
However, there's no excuse for stopping on a yellow or red line (at least a "no loading" one). It's there for a reason, you'd cause an obstruction. If you're allowed to stop for however many minutes it is that you're allowed for loading and unloading, it says so on the sign. If not, you're not, because it causes too much of an obstruction to other people, and you should be subject to an immediate penalty.
It's like stopping on the zig zag to a zebra crossing. 3 points. No excuses. So don't do it, because there's an alternative (park somewhere that doesn't cause an obstruction and walk a bit).
Tim, London, UK
@Mike from Singapore: If you wanted to escape draconian enforcement of rules, I'm surprised you ended up in Singapore, where you get fined £400 or so for dropping chewing gum or not flushing a public toilet!
Tim, London, UK
Much the same in Manchester. though the disposable incomes are less. One ray of hope. On-street parking restrictions (and charges) finish at 6. Last year the Council and its NCP enforcers tried to bring them in for the evening as well. The political storm was so great that they had to drop the scheme.
AQ42, Chester,
I bought a parking pay and display ticket for Highgate Hill.
Unfortunately it was only valid for one side of the road. This wasn't clear from the signs. I parked on the wrong side.
From the timestamp on the resulting parking ticket it was clear that the warden saw me park, buy and display the ticket, wait for me to depart, then clamp my car.
Another (albeit small) reason why I voted with my feet and left the UK.
Mike, Singapore,
The constant increase in revenue raising achieves what ? Less of every service, the latest -re-classifying of pot holes in the roads. There has of course been the creation of jobs in PR, advisory, legal and many other wasteful posts. As a young soldier the old hands said only take what you need in your large pack, you have to carry it. Well we are all carrying an excess now. I am not resentful of business men and women earning high incomes if they achieve, I am sick of the excess of "executives" running government agencies, the acceptable promoted at the expense of the capable.
Wills, Soton, UK
Why do no other cities in the world need such draconian traffic wardens and endless CCTV cameras? Driving round NY or Paris is a relative joy compared to London, how do they make it work in a crowded city?
London is no longer 'cool'. It has had it's day. Most other major cities offer a far superior standard of living and equally excellent job prospects. Plus you can drive around without daily ending up with hundred pound fines.
Alex Williams, Singapore,
Has anyone in the UK considered the obvious solution to this problem? Cut back the size of your government!
The smaller the government, the less feeding they need. The less feeding they need, the more money the citizens get to keep. The more money the citizens get to keep, the more investment they make in the economy (stocks, consuming, investment, etc). The more money they put into the economy, the better off everyone is.
I have always been amazed by the British need for government "services". Give people their money back, and they won't need the nanny state.
Bill, Atlanta, Georgia, US
Since councils are unable to raise their own revenues by any reasonable means, they do so by unreasonable means. Camera-based parking fines will probably kill off yet more of the High Street - what's left after business rates that have already turned most high streets into a bizarre mix of charity shops, banks and Real Estate agents.
The source of the problem is the Thatcherite centralization of taxation followed by Labour's continued disempowerment of local government. Now, local councils tot up the parking fines, car parking charges and traffic camera revenue and cheerfully reduce service levels for everything while claiming it's just good business. It just isn't.. It's rubbish, and even then only once a fortnight.
Richard, Horley,
It won’t bother me. I gave up going into my local city centre long ago and now buy everything either on-line or in out-of-town stores. Instead of welcoming car-using shoppers into a city, councils seem intent on making such a visit as miserable an experience as possible and either want to charge for entering or extract a fine for staying too long. The decline of city centres will soon be complete as councils hand over former pleasant and civilized spaces to hoodies and gangs of drunkards.
Tony Griffiths, Sheffield, UK
What are you talking about, I've had parking tickets in Mousehole, Hungerford, Chippenham, Marlborough, Goring and Newbury in the last 20 years.
Sedgwick, London, UK
I live in Albany W Australia, a town of 35,000.
There are no traffic lights, no parking meters, and no charges for parking.
It's bliss
Bruce Scott, Albany, W australia
As I live on a side road where my ability to pull out into the main road is often dangerously impaired by cars and vans parked on yellow lines; I can't wait for more traffic wardens, they will reduce the chances of an accident for me and at least make driving less stressful.
Yellow lines are often there for a reason, and just because you "stopped for a minute" to "pop" into a shop is not much consolation for the poor motorist who is at least stuck waiting for five minutes for you to move your car that is blocking traffic and at worst having a an accident caused by your lack of consideration for others.
Life is a prisoner's dilemma - yellow line parkers are defectors. £60 quid fine - flogging's too good for them.
Mark, Grays, Essex
Labour are committing Political suicide. They won't change before the next election as they are addicted to the 'Control freak' aspects of Government. Thankfully we will not see another Labour Government for a Generation and the long and hard road to recovery and sanity will commence in 2 years.
John, manchester,
Mike from Birmingham - It is not "really quite simple" when public servants act as predators, rather than servants of the public. And many of these traffic wardens, etc. really are predators.
My Magic Kingdom (Britain, not Disneyworld) is more and more in the insane grip of people who have:
- A basic mistrust of the citizens as a threat not to be trusted.
- A compulsion to over-regulate.
- A (Marxist? Soviet?) officious tightening of the grip over ordinary people.
- A rip-off idea of a proper fine. (Daily Mail had a great recording of a speed camera salesman telling a potential city of the scads of money they could make.
- An outrageous allowance for private car clampers to operate with rediculous on-the-spot "fines" (legally sanctioned extortions?)
Soon Britain will have to answer a basic question more openly: Are the citizens, who elect officials, to be trusted? Or is it the job of their elected officials to control them Soviet-style?
Please God, let it be trust!
Don, Ames, Iowa, USA
I agree that it is dreadful to know there's always a camera somewhere watching your every move in London. It feels a lot more relaxed driving outside London, and I have only had fines in London, never ever anywhere else... I agree that it's total extortion to pay for our Olympics.
Adam, Tunbridge Wells,
And of course if you appeal and lose the fine will be doubled.
The purpose of parking legislation is to ease the flow of traffic. It ought to follow that where no traffic is being obstructed, for instance when a car overstays in an otherwise empty car park, the fines are not levied. But it doesn't, because the enforcement is contracted out and seen as a money maker.
Jamie Gilmour, Bolton, UK
Yes indeed, 15 years in London and it was easy to see the creeping cancer of this form of revenue raising. It amounted to virtual entrappment, I could site 3 instances where this occured to me, all of which after lengthy and time consuming appeals were dropped.
1/ I had to have three witness' verify that we were in a shop listening to the 9:00 pips on the radio as the warden was sticking a ticket on the screen saying it was 10 past.
2/ Dropping my aged semi ambulant neighbour to the post office on a long stretch of bus lane, I was supposed to stop and drop her in the middle of the road! Though I pulled into the curb and straight back out into the car lane.... they still issued an infringement.
3/ Traffic warden admitted watching me try two different coins in the meter which it rejected then unsuccessfully seeking change from passers by before finding a shop to get more coins. As soon as my back was turned he issued a ticket and called the truck!
No wonder I am here in Australia
Clive, Australia,
Don't park illegally. It's really quite simple.
Mike, Birmingham,