OT. Parking

[al]

Fair enough. Most governments are pretty good at being as needlessly inept as possible!

a

[al]

Surprisiningly pointless unqualified snipe?

I've explained my opinion is based on seeing footage of how these "people" behave and day-to-day watching them trying to reach their quotas at any cost. I'm not attacking them because I approve of people parking anywhere they choose - quite the contrary - they deserve what they get.

Whilst I am sure there are some nice, genuine people that happen to be parking wardens, I believe they are few and far between and most likely would be chased out of the profession very quickly by the rotten vermin that manage such operations and the corrupt council officials that set the minimum targets for ticket revenue.

a

[Mike]

I think it's probably more likely that nice people can't put up with the grief dolled out to traffic wardens.

But totally agree with the point on (senior) council officials. Somewhere along the line these seem to have forgotten they are servants of the public and not the other way round.

[Mary Fisher]

That's not what you said before:

"parking wardens are one

You can't have it both ways.

[:::Jerry::::]

respect or

carried out

Are you suggesting that they are ticketing *legally* parked vehicles ?...

If the vehicle ticketed is parked illegally then there is no defence, it might well be 'jobsworth' of the traffic warden but we all know what we as drivers have to do if we don't want to run the risk of being booked. I would say that all the traffic wardens I've come across (in manny parts of the UK) have been very understanding as to why I have parked were I have, mostly due to loading etc, and once explained they have gone on their way or have helped to come to a workable solution that is within the letter of the law.

As I said, if there wasn't any illegally parked vehicles the 'rotten vermin' would soon starve....

[:::Jerry::::]

Somewhere

Perhaps if we all still called them 'Civil Servents' they wouldn't forget so often ?!...

[al]

Yes I can .. where would the world be without sweeping generalisations :p

I think one can assume a reasonable reader with would take such as statement as such and not assume that it is biologically impossible to have a normal human working as a parking attendant. You never said anything like "politicians are all a bunch of crooks" before? If not - you should ... they are!

Now where'd that red rag land .....

a

[Mike]

Once tried that with some snotty young girl with a Socialist Worker badge and was told "we are council employees"

[al]

Never! You think some of them are dishonest??! *wanders if there's such thing as a sarcastic font ... and if there were, could it be used in bold* .....

Yes, but when they ticket someone for being 1cm over a line, as many post office vans as possible at 08:00:01 while they're still trying to get them all loaded/moving, or a crash victim as they lie helpless in their vehicle waiting for an ambulance, or a hearse as it brings a body into a Church, etc. etc. etc. etc., then they loose any respect.

Even a policeman (if you find a nice one!) will admit that one of their greatest assets is the ability to occasionally look the other way. Not every law needs to be enforced all the time every time to the letter and with the maximum penalty. This isn't to suggest that people should expect to be able to break the law, but that in some circumstances, better judgement should rule the day. For the record, I've never had any sort of parking ticket, just in case someone thinks this is sour grapes!

If you or anyone else wants to live in a fascist state, then there's really no point in arguing because we'll never agree. Next someone will be telling me that you should be locked up for saying "Boo!" to a burglar ...

a

[al]

Fat chance of them being civil in any case ... ;)

a

[Mike]

"Boo!" to a burglar ...

I thought these were both already the case in the wonderful world of "Neu Labor"

"Wo ist deine papieren ?" (or something like that - long time since I watched "Great Escape" :-)

[al]

LOL .. how peculiar .. was just talking about that film in work today! I have it all mixed up with Ice-Cold in Alex and several other great old films!

a

[:::Jerry::::]

"You may well be, my girl, it still means you are a Civil Servant though" would have been my fathers reply to that!...

[Parish]

On 26/05/2005 23:19 al gurgled:

Exactly. The reason, IMHO, for this lack of tolerance is that when the Govt. is faced with a problem/issue (usually of it's own making) then rather than address it they use it as a way to screw money out of Joe Public.

Motorists are the favourite target - parking, the London Congestion Tax, speeding, M6 Tax motorway, and their refusal to outlaw (private) clampers as the extortionists they are - but it's going to spread. There have already been proposals to tax high-fat/unhealthy food (rather than make healthy food cheaper) and to fine people who don't separate out recyclable material from their rubbish (rather than rewarding those who do, by reducing their Council Tax for example).

Parish

[The Natural Philosopher]

Indeed. And they are the ones who get away with it. Not us poor sods who pay, display, and get a ticket anyway.

The best recourse is to have a car with foreign plates...

[The Natural Philosopher]

We have a new waitrose, complete with new car park.

I saw a gent walking around takling nnumbers.

"What are you doing" "Compiling a lits of people who may use it as free parking for a day"

"And if they are" "well next week we will put a ticket on their screens asking them not to do it" "And if they continue?" "Then we will have a talk with them" "And if that still doesn't work" "er..well that's not my problem"

:-)

[Tony Williams]

It's what naturally happens when you put such tasks out to private companies. A privately employed parking jobsworth has to book as many as possible so that he demonstrates that he is earning his wages, (plus the profit required for the shareholders).

If he has a 'thin week', (everyone parking legally), then he has to revert to nit-picking in order to keep his job.

This is why privatisation of legal penalties is so dangerous.... clampers, bailiffs, parking jobsworths, bloody 'speed camera partnerships'.... they all tend to end up with their own revenue as the primary motivation.

[Tony Bryer]

That's an oversimplification IMO. ISTM that the police have been just as keen to go after easily pickings (eating apple while driving, possession of a trivial amount of cannabis) whilst leaving difficult stuff on the desk. I suspect that there's more than one planning enforcement officer who prefers taking on little people over trivial things rather than real issues (when my council decided to use the TCPA provisions applying to buildings detrimental to the neighbourhood to prosecute someone who painted their house bright pink, I suggested that they should use similar powers against the owner of a 20-year derelict swimming pool ... i.e. themselves).

[Andy Luckman (AJL Electronics)]

I pointed out that "Socialist Worker" was an oxymoron to one such lout. He responded in the time honoured fashion of a stream of expletives and threats against the person. :-)

[Tony Bryer]

Two from today's news, though given LBRuT's own parking enforcement policies I had to smile at this ...

"A CHARGE of £40 imposed on Richmond upon Thames Council for parking on a red route while they removed graffiti has been strongly condemned by its leader."

"A driver today called a traffic warden " despicable" for ticketing him just after his car had been hit by suspected joyriders."

takes a special sort of person to do this job ...