snoozy traffic wardens (Lounged)

[blinder999]

>

> Scum if you ask me.

maybe I've just been lucky. I would struggle not to resort to violence if this happened to me.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Peckham

Rose - shocked at the major intolerance. Do people really think parking doesn't need any regulation at all?

Sympathies with Brendan's experience but faced with the general public's attitude to parking and their ability to lie about it then of course a zero-tolerance approach has been adopted. My sympathies are with them mostly - screwed by managers for targets and screwed by the public for doing what they shouldn't have

So if it's not parking attendants, how DO people want to be able to park (and do bear in mind that without regulation that spot on the double yellow lines you stopped on for 10 minutes won't be there anymore, it'll be taken loooong before you get there)

[macroban]

I suggest a parking offence 0800 hot-line where we can report illegal parking. The reports would be radioed through to a parking warden fast-response team. The extra revenue collected would pay for the service.

[Keef]

PeckhamRose Wrote:

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> Traffic wardens are not doing a socially useful job.

Define socially useful. Imagine if everyone could just park where they wanted, and to hell with everyone else...

Situations like Brendan describes are terrible, but I imagine rare. I do agree that putting it out to agencies on commission based wages is a bit of a dodgy one, but still don't think it's fair to call them scum.

If you knowingly break a rule and get done for it, it serves you right (extreame circumstances aside)! If you disagree with the positioning of a double yellow, then take it up with highways, but whilst that line is there, then the traffic wardens are right to ticket the fools who park on it!

[peckhamboy]

I don't have a problem with cars being ticketed for illegal parking, but the only time I ever got a ticket (in a different London borough) really pissed me off because i'd even gone to the trouble of actually locating one of their parking shops, visiting it during their ludicrously short opening hours, paying for a day permit and displaying it in the car. I then got ticketed for some minor contravention of the unnecessarily complex rules, like putting it on the driver's side of the dashboard rather than the kerbside, or not attaching it to the windscreen or something equally trivial.

Yes, technically, I was breaching their regulations but surely there's scope for a bit of common sense in how they're applied? Still, the warden probably paid for his dinner out of that fine, so I guess that makes it ok?

[Keef]

No, I thoroughly agree that that is ludicrous, and again, this may be why hte commission based thing isn't good.

[*Bob*]

I'm not sure that being asked to stick your ticket to one particular side of your windscreen and not the other qualifies as "unnecessarily complex rules".

[david_carnell]

*Bob* Wrote:

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> I feel sorry for traffic wardens.

> People park illegally, get fined by people who's

> job it is to issue tickets to people who park

> illegally - and for some reason can't seem to

> understand why.

>

> "I only parked there for a minute"

> "I just stopped to use the cashpoint"

> "I'm waiting for someone"

> "I'm only just over the line"

> etc

> etc

> etc

Take a deep breath Bob and sit down because.......

.....I agree with you 100%. And I've been fined in the past. Parked in a disabled bay [hangs head in shame]. And parking wardens are socially useful. Try getting to work on a bus with people parked in the bus lane.

[peckhamboy]

I'm not sure that being asked to stick your ticket to one particular side of your windscreen and not the other qualifies as "unnecessarily complex rules".

Maybe not on its own, but when there's about three paragraphs of instruction on exactly what you have to do perhaps it all adds up to unnecessarily complex rules? Especially if you're in a hurry and don't have 10 minutes to waste trying to figure out exactly what you have to do. Normally you'd expect that scratching off the date and leaving it on the dashboard would be enough.

Are you saying that failing to put the ticket on the passenger side rather than the driver side should be punishable with a parking fine? Because if so, we'll have to agree to differ on that one.

[*Bob*]

peckhamboy Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Are you saying that failing to put the ticket on

> the passenger side rather than the driver side

> should be punishable with a parking fine? Because

> if so, we'll have to agree to differ on that one.

I agree it's trivial and an irritation if you get caught-out on a minor thing such as this. But (like it or not), we live in a world of rules and wherever the lines are drawn, there's always someone who will think its too far and someone who will think it not far enough.

If it's ok for the ticket to be on either sidescreen, why not on any of the side windows too? Or the back windscreen? Or the back seat (as long as it's face-up)?

The thing is, because of the general hatred of parking tickets, parking fines, parking attendants etc the kind of thing which would be no trouble at all in other circumstances.. let's say.. reading the instructions on the back of a DIY product.. becomes too much trouble and turns into "why should I?!", despite the fact that you won't get fined ?100 for not reading the DIY instructions properly.

[Brendan]

The problem lies with them having financial incentives and targets. Therefore even if everyone is obeying the parking regulations they have to go out and fabricate situations or just plane victimise vulnerable people into paying things they don?t need to.

[peckhamboy]

I agree it's trivial and an irritation if you get caught-out on a minor thing such as this. But (like it or not), we live in a world of rules

Which is why I paid the fine (grudgingly). But, if traffic wardens were simply paid a wage rather than given bonuses for hitting targets, they wouldn't have to look for technical breaches like this, which the council then use as justification for introducing more wardens and more restrictions. It just irritates me that there is no scope for simply saying "he's in a marked space and he's paid the parking charge, and the ticket is perfectly and obviously visible. It really doesn't matter that it's not in exactly the right place."

[dave]

In light of the discussion, this is interesting...

Not sure how far the attendants are actively incentivised to give out more tickets (rather than simply keeping their job by meeting a minimum quota). I notice in Westminster/Camden they tend to be careful to take pictures of illegally parked cars now, though I haven't seen the same in SE London so far.

[Brendan]

Why should they have to meet a quota? That is like saying that X amount of people have to be arrested for murder every year regardless of how many murders actually occur.

[lozzyloz]

Not quite Brendan. The equivalent in murder terms would be to reach acceptable clear up rates. Don't you watch the wire?

[Nero]

Bob, I agree with you about doing the crime and paying the fine, but the thread was originally about layabout ones breaking the law themselves by resting on a double yellow. That is illegal and arrogant and not to be condoned. Nero

[*Bob*]

Perk of the job?

Everyone knows the cops occasionally put the siren on to get to the chip shop before it shuts.

[Nero]

Not really. They know how hated they are already, so to do something to further pee people off is wrong on many levels. Nero

[*Bob*]

I suppose when you get past a certain point of vilification, you just don't really care any more.

If you do a search on the 'net for traffic wardens parking on yellow lines, you'll find that there's no shortage of stories from local rags up and down the country where embittered members of the general public have stalked and photographed traffic wardens doing this or that.

All of them have that unmistakable whiff: the whiff of revenge.

[Administrator]

I will shortly be moving this discussion to the Lounge as it's no longer East Dulwich specific

[monica]

I get my kicks from watching the great programme on weds night BBC 1 where ticket evaders who owe hundreds or even thousands in unpaid tickets get hit by loud npr van. Now these guys definately deserved getting a ticket

[ladywotlunches]

-- moved topic --

[????]

Bob - the roads are paid for by road tax and rates, paid by motorists, whilst some parking restrictions are needed, most are jusrt a convenient revenue scheme for the council. You're lovely outdated 'Lovely rita meter maid' view of traffic wardens bears no resemblance to the commission based no scruples idiots with targets who stalk our streets. I've have got off two tickets that were completley unjustified - if you want I can tell you the boring stories behind them but in both i had NOT broken parking laws - by fronting out their demands, appealing and saying that I'd go to court in face of threats of escalating fines...many people don't. It's blackmail.

[*Bob*]

I'm glad you proved your innocence, ????.

But in the majority of cases, the prisons are full of innocent men - so to speak - and I'm afraid I can't agree with your somewhat Clarksonesque portrait of our charming, courteous, even-tempered, fair-minded Knights Of The Double Yellow.

[Cllr Richard Thomas]

if the car was red it sounds as if it might have been a community warden.

There is a point in emailing your 'lovely councillors' who will of course do our best to help - if you don''t we can't....

richard