Seems odd. A move in favour of motorists?
Actually, it will just mean councils will make up lost revenue elsewhere. I wonder where.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10915510/Ban-on-CCTV-parking-fines-for-unwitting-motorists.html
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>> Seems odd. A move in favour of motorists?
Isn't there a general election soon?.....
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Is it in favour our of motorists? It is surely in favour of those who couldn't give a stuff about where they park and what obstruction they cause to other pedestrians or drivers. Often there is parking available yet some people , often in expensive cars are too mean to pay or to walk. If no parking is available then tough, go elsewhere.
I would like to see zero tolerance for illegal parking, especially opposite road junctions and on the pavement, not some some sort of implied right to park anywhere.
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>> I would like to see zero tolerance for illegal parking....
I don't think this is really about parking - if a car is parked then there's no reason a passing warden can't slap a ticket on it.
There's been uproar in Chester about one of these vans knabbing people who stop momentarily to drop-off or collect people at an obvious drop-off point in the city centre.
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Rightly so. Setting down or picking up is permitted on yellow lines, but not on pedestrian or school zigzags. I think you're allowed a notional two minutes.
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>> Rightly so. Setting down or picking up is permitted on yellow lines, but not on
>> pedestrian or school zigzags. I think you're allowed a notional two minutes.
>>
No, the area I'm referring to is cul-de-sac with a roundabout at the end. You drive in, go around the roundabout, drop off or pick up, and drive out. One side of the road has a taxi-rank and the council claimed taxi drivers had complained about people blocking the rank but the cabbies denied it.
Declaring the area a no stopping zone looked entirely cynical and it's been reported that more and more people were appealing and having their complaints upheld.
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>> I would like to see zero tolerance for illegal parking, especially opposite road junctions and on the pavement, not some some sort of implied right to park anywhere.
Have you got a local parking problem CGN? If you have, perhaps there's an excuse for what seems to me a perverse attitude in a motorist. That 'especially' is a giveaway: it seems you don't want people to park even where they aren't causing an obstruction if the LA deems it 'illegal'. Whose side are you on?
Car ownership really does imply a right to park anywhere. Provided courtesy and common sense are used, that poses no problem to man or beast, although very large concentrations of parked cars can pose a temporary problem.
Yellow lines all over the place with cctv or camera van enforcement is naked theft administered by evil clacking jobsworths. It's a total outrage and any government that curbs it will be doing everyone a favour.
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I wish they'd use them a bit more round here: tinyurl.com/q73s5tg
They're market stalls on the right. When there's a market, idle sods just pull up on those double yellows and take their time doing their shopping. A bus pulls up at the bus stop. Another bus can't get through the gap - gridlock.
The idle sods argue they've only been a few minutes, ignoring the inconvenience they've caused dozens!
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I'm in favour of a ban on CCTV parking fines... because ..... as ever the theory is sound, but the practice is pants.
If the only people ever caught were the truly selfish who couldn't care less then I'd be more in favour.. however, we all know it isn't like that.
Some moron will run the outfit on a targets basis, so volume is better than quality and employ someone on minimum wage too frightened to use any common sense ..so it then becomes all out war on the motorist for the most minor or understandable transgression.
Then councils cynically yellow line everywhere regardless of whether it is needed or not.
So all in all, it's their own greedy faults.
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Yes Westpig, that's more or less the exact size of it.
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"Car ownership really does imply a right to park anywhere. Provided courtesy and common sense are used, that poses no problem to man or beast, although very large concentrations of parked cars can pose a temporary problem."
Well the the first part of the sentence is clearly cobblers. The roads are for going from A to B. Purchase of a ton of metal does not give you the right to leave it wheresoever you like.
What sort of courtesy is it parking a road junction or on the pavement or in an area where parking is clearly prohibited "just to use the cash machine" . None whatsoever. Parking restrictions are a direct consequence of the selfishness and "me first'' attitude of a significant number of motorists. It is quite easy to go through life and never get a parking ticket if you are
reasonably careful. Councils might want to raise some extra cash but it's hardly difficult to avoid becoming a contributor.
I remain resolutely un-outraged.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Sat 21 Jun 14 at 18:48
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You've never been in a serious town obviously CGN. Or you're a moralistic sucker with all the time in the world. You simply don't understand what's being said here. Hard luck.
I remain resolutely contemptuous.
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I lived in London for 40 years. I live now in a traffic clogged city with a medieval road system which would grind to a halt without enforced parkings controls. I have no moral view on parking, just a practical one. I don't have all the time in the world, on the contrary, and that is why being hindered in my progress by self obsessed individuals who consider their own time more important than mine irritating.
Why does anybody have to park illegally?
They don't. Ever.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Sat 21 Jun 14 at 20:09
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>> Why does anybody have to park illegally?
Parking is one thing. When you're on the run and need to wait for a moment, perhaps for a money machine or even to get parking bumf out of a shop, obviously if you have any brains in a sensible place, and the jobsworths get you with a camera van in those two minutes, you have every right to be outraged. It's rubbish and naked theft.
Do I sound like the sort of person who parks on a narrow blind bend or across someone's drive entrance? I have brains and am considerate.
I repeat: you must be a naive moralist with all the time in the world. You simply don't understand, 40 years in the smoke or not. It's theft.
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Well naive moralist that I am I have avoided parking tickets all these years the simple expedient of being a bit organised and being prepared to walk a few yards and pay for parking where necessary.
If people want to take a chance , go ahead. Just don't get in my way and when caught don't whinge. Does nobody take responsibility for their actions these days?
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>> avoided parking tickets all these years the simple expedient of being a bit organised and being prepared to walk a few yards and pay for parking where necessary.
Yes, and it's cost you a great deal in money and time (which is money). I can't see that as admirable in any way. In fact a little-known secret is that if you're busy, and not a faffing perfectionist, being robbed from time to time by these unspeakable swine you are happy to suck up to is cheaper than avoiding their attention.
Still, you don't want to do anything illegal do you? Tchah!
Honestly CGN I'm sure you're all right really but your attitude on this one is pathetic.
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Honestly CGN I'm sure you're all right really but your attitude on this one is pathetic.
No, it isn't - it's entirely reasonable and correct. In AC's fondly-remembered (or imagined?) 1950s nirvana, it might have been possible to park wherever one happened to want to end up, but even then there were drivers who lacked the awareness to work out for themselves where parking would cause an obstruction - there were just far fewer other road users for them to obstruct. And these days there are just too many cars everywhere, so without parking restrictions and the rationing imposed by charges and time limits, towns would be choked in no time.
But even with yellow lines there'll be those that don't get it. There's a road near me where the householders park almost all the way along one side but there's space for two streams of traffic to pass. Then the road narrows and there are yellow lines to stop parking blocking it off, since it's a major route to and from town. But as often as not there's one more car parked on the end of the row and creating a bottleneck - and asking to lose a mirror to a passing white van.
Plenty more don't even know the basics. Beestling Major came home the other day reporting that he'd had to make a risky manoeuvre on his bike to get around a car parked in the mouth of a junction while its owner posted a letter. The road is wide and straight, and at the cost of a 20-metre walk the car could have been parked out of anyone's way. (Or its owner could have walked to the postbox from home; this isn't the Highlands of bleedin' Scotland!) This to me is a species of the same waddling bovinity to which AC objects so strenuously when it gets in his way in the lanes and highways of Sussex; no-one's read the book, so anything that isn't explicitly prohibited by a sign, someone will do. And then someone else will complain about the signs and the 'nanny state'. We get the society we deserve.
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>> Honestly CGN I'm sure you're all right really but your attitude on this one is pathetic.
>> No, it isn't - it's entirely reasonable and correct.
Yes it is, really. You make no distinction between people parked stupidly or inconsiderately and people parked sensibly albeit on yellow lines. You seem to think that yellow lines are 'the law' in some frightening overbearing way. You don't seem to understand that yellow lines are very often for council revenue by any means, even if some make sense. You seem to think it's all right for camera vans to try to rob people waiting for two minutes to cross the road to a money machine or similar.
Nothing to do with the fifties. Even then people used to park awkwardly. There are a lot of cars these days, sometimes too many for a given location. Then you either have to park a long way away and walk, or stay in the car, waiting not parking, and if necessary juggle in an adept fashion. If you can't do that you shouldn't drive in places like that.
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You seem to think it's all right for camera vans to try to rob people waiting for two minutes to cross the road to a money machine or similar.
Your error here, AC, is to imagine that the only difference between the status quo and the tolerance you would like is your two-minute stop. You're forgetting - or ignoring - that if yours was tolerated, so would everyone else's have to be. So that spot you covet outside the bank would be occupied all day by people making two-minute stops - and never free when you happened along. Where's your freedom then?
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>> Where's your freedom then?
Oh good God... There are lots of spots, not just one right outside the bank. Cars stop nearby for a minute or two all day long. Some of them are caught by your beastly cameras. There's no good reason for it, none at all.
All this depends on the place and its layout, very obviously. It's tighter in some places than in others.
Waiting and parking are not the same thing, except to you and a council camera jobsworth.
It's all been said two or three times now. Go on being wrong if you like CGN. I'm tired of correcting you. I bet Westpig is too. But never mind.
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>>Go on being wrong if you like CGN
Umm, you're replying to WillDeBeest
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Sorry CGN, no offence WDB but you are wrong.
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>>no offence WDB but you are wrong.
I don't think he is. Double yellows are double yellows and parking on them is an absolute offence.
By all means argue as to whether or not they should be there, but if and while they are there they should apply to everybody all the time.
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Yeah, yeah. Big deal.
Absolute offence be damned. It's just a goddam council regulation.
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>> Sorry CGN, no offence WDB but you are wrong.
>>
As an immoralist I' m seldom a offended AC. You know I'm right really so is WdB
Anyway spent the day driving from Norwich to Orleans and now ensconced in a rather nice apartment in an eighteenth century chateau with acres of grounds and parking for dozens of cars so parking not an issue with me today. :-)
Lots of police activity on the roads today. Saw a number of cars pulled over on the : Speeding I guess. I understand the French polices are having a crackdown. If you get stopped you better have a large bundle of Euros. Handing out on the spot 3 day bans as well.
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>> now ensconced in a rather nice apartment in an eighteenth century chateau with acres of grounds and parking for dozens of cars so parking not an issue with me today. :-)
The French have a far more sensible attitude to parking than we do. One or two bits in the middles of big towns perhaps... apart from that, they are pro-motorist.
I hope you have a lovely time CGN and come back a lion refreshed (perhaps with more sensible attitudes, but never mind that).
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>> Why does anybody have to park illegally?
>>
>> They don't. Ever.
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Total talking out of backside.
I regularly visit the edges of a city centre, with a 4x4 and trailer, to visit a main dealer and scoop up whatever cars he has had traded in.
Sometimes I'm there an hour or more and sometimes it's 10 mins. I am quite happy to pay for my visit or park legally somewhere ..only there isn't anywhere.
My actual loading is facilitated by the single yellow line ... but my hour visit beforehand if they are busy and cannot deal with me for a while, isn't.
So what do I do? Cease trading and do something else? Nip in and show my face (whilst parking illegally) then continuously drive around in the hope they'll ring me when they have a spare minute.. yeah right.. if I'm not there to hand, I don't get anything.
Luckily for me, because of my previous employment, I know the game, so I abandon ship totally on a pavement (and despite me parking with a Mitsubishi Shogun and a large car trailer, there's still oodles of room around it... says something about the local council's parking policies and the room to provide more parking spaces)...safe in the knowledge the scamera car and wardens can't do me for that.
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Careful Wp. You may be a member of the security forces but putting even a wheel on the pavement is equivalent to child abuse or neglecting the elderly in many eyes here.
Parking, bus lanes, all that scheiss, is LA scamming and theft. Any fool can see that. Well, most fools anyway.
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>> Luckily for me, because of my previous employment, I know the game, so I abandon
>> ship totally on a pavement (and despite me parking with a Mitsubishi Shogun and a
>> large car trailer, there's still oodles of room around it... says something about the local
>> council's parking policies and the room to provide more parking spaces)...safe in the knowledge the
>> scamera car and wardens can't do me for that.
>>
Is that really true? I've seen it asserted that parking restrictions on a road apply across the adjacent footpath.
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>> Is that really true? I've seen it asserted that parking restrictions on a road apply
>> across the adjacent footpath.
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Oh it's definitely an offence ... just not one that the scamera car is authorised to deal with*.
Same principle as parking on zig zag lines at a zebra crossing ...local wardens can't deal because they are not entitled to deal with endorsable offences*....
...although I'm not suggesting it's wise to do that.
* Be aware that things change ...and I've been away from it for nearly 2.5 years.
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The trouble is that enforcement is always going to get closer and closer to 100%. Tolerating a law because of inefficient enforcement is wrong.
Change the law, say to allow up to 2 minutes on yellow lines, and then enforcement is never going to be an issue.
Same as speeding, make the speed limit appropriate and then ignore enforcement.
We should be focusing on the law, not the enforcement. And laws which prevent you stopping to allow someone in or out of your car, assuming it is safe and reasonable to do so, seem wrong.
One would also ask why there are parking restrictions in the first place anywhere that it is safe and reasonable to stop.
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>> One would also ask why there are parking restrictions in the first place anywhere that it is safe and reasonable to stop.
The answer is obvious, but no one in the yellow line painting business will give it to you. They will mumble a whole lot of idiotic balderdash in a nasty accent, sniffing and slurping up the snot running down their upper lips and scratching their private parts.
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Not happened to me and probably won't but I can park quite legally on double yellows as long as obstruction is not caused. And the camera van could well not see the reason despite a human on foot would.
Reason for all this is, I've got a blue badge.
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Can you park on double yellows anywhere you like with a blue badge?
Because that doesn't make sense to me. If its dangerous to park, its dangerous to park whoever you are. Shouldn't it be marked out parking saying blue badge only?
Surely double yellows should apply to all?
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That's what I thought NoFM2R, it sort of goes with what AC said upthread, some places with double yellows aren't really dangerous, if they all were that bad no-one, blue badge holders or otherwise, would be allowed to park there.
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Can you park on double yellows anywhere you like with a blue badge?
No, as I said
I can park quite legally on double yellows as long as obstruction is not caused.
An awful lot of road painting is done for the worst case scenario, and it's fairly easy to identify places that are ok if it's not a school day/time etc.
My blue badge is normally only of value when making hospital visits, or driving into the congestion zone as my £10 covers three years.
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(just to be clear, I am not challenging, I am interested).
So what happens if you park somewhere that you deem not to be obstructive and them some traffic warden (or whoever) decides that it is?
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So what happens if you park somewhere that you deem not to be obstructive and them some traffic warden (or whoever) decides that it is?
One argues/has a fight!
Seriously, it must occur but I suspect a traffic operative will probably not wish to deal as it will probably end up in court so unless the blue badge holder is being particularly silly, best ignored. Mine has never been used on double yellows as I've always found something better.
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>> (just to be clear, I am not challenging, I am interested).
>>
>> So what happens if you park somewhere that you deem not to be obstructive and
>> them some traffic warden (or whoever) decides that it is?
This happens, next town over from me.
www.ely-news.co.uk/News/640-penalty-for-disabled-driver-86-who-parked-at-top-of-Elys-Forehill-20140617110414.htm
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And a well deserved prosecution too.
Parking outside that hairdressers does indeed force folks over into the path of oncoming traffic that's just appeared round a totally blind bend and risks any accident involving pedestrians on the opposite path.
He was stupid to park there and even more stupid to contest it taking the fine from a fixed £30 to £600 with costs.
Shows either huge arrogance or more likely an indicator of whether he should be still driving at all. Particularly given there is a huge car park down a path just 300ft behind the shop.
I have a family member who received a blue badge in their 80s and see it as a golden ticket for parking anywhere.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Mon 23 Jun 14 at 09:01
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Very few restrictions would be necessary at all if people could be relied upon to use common sense.
However, it seems few have any and even fewer are prepared to use it so we once again end up with lowest common denominator regulations.
I think they should have a section on the news, perhaps just before the weather, where they show the public execution by firing squad of some people who have done really stupid things which have patently inconvenienced the public at large that day. And indeed they could see off some criminals who have been caught committing the same crime more than twice too of course.
Just half a dozen or so each day would do. I reckon the penny would drop fairly quickly with even the most serial offenders., don't you think?
They could call it "Today's topical toppings" or something catchy anyway.
;-)
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This has nothing to do with reality of parking enforcement and everything to do with Jabba the Pickles political ambition.
The guy talks about empowering councils and arranges passing of a 'Localism Act' to supposedly facilitate such things. In fact he's micromanaging parking, planning, bin collections and goodness knows what else from his oversize bunker in Marsham St.
You couldn't make it up.
I only wish HM's Loyal Opposition were any more principled.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 23 Jun 14 at 00:24
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>> Same principle as parking on zig zag lines at a zebra crossing ...local wardens can't
>> deal because they are not entitled to deal with endorsable offences*....
IIRC that offence has been partly decriminalised so that Council CEOs can issue fixed penalties for it (but not points). Still a points offence if caught by a Copper though.
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CEOs can dish out a ticket for parking on approach which would not incur points on licence. Here PC can come along and issue TOR (Traffice Offence Report) FPTs are so yesterday. They would remove CEO ticket and return to enforcement office with covering report as to what they had done. CEO ticket would then be cancelled.
Last edited by: Fullchat on Mon 23 Jun 14 at 13:57
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CCTV parking fines to be banned - swiss tony
