MSE News: Councils issue more parking fines

taffy056

How about a FOI request to individual councils about the numbers of appeals refused at the first hurdle, how many have been taken to patas etc, and how many paid straight away. Probably best to do each request individually .

give_them_FA

Agree with you Esmerobbo, where the parking is dangerous or obstructive, quite right they should be ticketed. That's the whole purpose of having regulations. But elsewhere, soooooo many tickets are issued for pettifogging infringements that have no effect on traffic and that is where it's all about money-grabbing.

zerog

MacMickster wrote: »

The stats equate to each warden issuing around 1 ticket per hour at work. This sounds as if they are either displaying a very restrained attitude or shirking on the job.

or maybe not that many people park incorrectly. I spotted a warden while walking the dog one day and decided to stalk him for an hour. He looked busy, presumably writing down all the licence plates to check if they were overstaying, but he wasn't able to issue any tickets.

Sir_Alan

zerog wrote: »

or maybe not that many people park incorrectly. I spotted a warden while walking the dog one day and decided to stalk him for an hour. He looked busy, presumably writing down all the licence plates to check if they were overstaying, but he wasn't able to issue any tickets.

It sounds like he was doing his job fairly and conscientiously (as I suspect the majority of council-employed wardens do). But some drivers really do ask for it: two recent examples I saw were both blue badge holders who apparently thought the privilege meant they could park without consideration for anyone else; one was another instance of parking on DYL too close to a traffic island on a busy but narrow main road, so that anything larger than a small car had to drive the wrong side of the island; the other thought it perfectly reasonable to park on SYL across an office car park entrance, so that the users had to wait for more than an hour to get their cars out. They both got tickets, which I sincerely hope were not cancelled.

AltheHibby

Sir Alan,

With you on that. I have a friend who parks anywhere she feels like, whether the holder is with her or not. At least she got a lesson recently when caught at 47 in a 30 zone. Didn't stop her complaining that they should only have warned her instead of giving her a fixed penalty!

give_them_FA

Yes, contrary to some people's opinions, we don't condone selfish, inconsiderate, or downright stupid parking.

TrickyWicky

Azari wrote: »

What annoys me about CEO's, though, is that the spend all their time prowling around car parks and residents bays whilst motorists flout double yellow lines and hold up traffic on busy main roads

As a former CEO I thought you might like some insight into this..

I used to love the yellow lines, bus stop clearways, taxi ranks, loading bans etc. Why? Because I was doing something useful, the tickets were easier to issue (instant unless there wasa chance of loading on yellow lines) and frankly it was more rewarding to issue a PCN for someone doing a serious 'wrong' instead of someone who's P&D ticket had run out 10 minutes ago in a car park thats half empty and the vehicle causing no obstruction. I frequently left cars alone that were in a car park like this - it seemed pointless to ticket someone for trying to do the right thing.

Who said CEO's don't have a conscience?

Car parks, resident bays, limited waiting bays... they're so boring they really are. There is nothing worse than walking around a car park, struggling to squeeze between wingmirrors, trying to find a reason to issue a PCN. It's really !!!!.

The problem is with yellow lines and other on-street serious stuff is they're very well known for being 'easy pickings' if the 'warden' sees you. Typically people will park up, dive into a shop and keep turning their head every 30 seconds to watch out for you. It's actually harder to issue a ticket to these vehicles than you would imagine. If the driver doesn't see you the odds are that someone else will and they'll shout the driver who'll come running out and move the vehicle. You walk off and they come back again. It's a game of cat and mouse and always has been and always will be.

The other problem is that once you've managed to land a ticket on someones car they're effectively allowed to stay there all day unless the police do something about it (how often does that happen?) so it can be counter productive. The decriminalised parking scheme was basically about giving the rich the ability to park anywhere they liked whilst the poor would still be forced to play fairly by the rules. If councils started issuing points on peoples licences then the entire nations pee taking attitude would change overnight.

Disabled drivers are often the worst abusers. If its not their son/daughter mis-using the badge then they're parking anywhere they like (such as loading ban areas with kerb markings) and insisting at the top of their voice they can park there because they're disabled. I used to carry a copy of the book around with me hat explains it all and the number of disabled drivers that would still refuse to listen was incredible. Others would just take the point, accept fault, claim its the first time (year right) etc. The blue badge scheme was a bodged idea from the start.

Foreign vehicles have been a issue for me for a long time. The UK government has been actively discriminating against UK drivers. If you're from abroad you're effectively able to get away with parking however you like and then going home. Some even live here but because the number plates are foreign, most parking offices can't do anything (a few will clamp but the owners just get another foreign car and carry on). In essence its the UK government giving foreigners an easy ride whilst crucifying us.

Without a doubt the councils do put their staff under more pressure for tickets. They're not allowed to but that doesn't stop them doing things like talking of redundancies, changing patrol beats (so you're forced to run into more ticketable cars), ignoring the quiet areas etc.

In all its a really grotty job. Sure it does have its good points such as the locals you get to have a chat with but you're often out there dealing with hostile people you've never met (who could be ex jailbirds / murderers), out in the freezing elements in the winter / scorching sun in the summer, at risk of being run over etc. Some councils really care about the safety of their staff whilst others won't even give you steel toe capped boots or sun cream. Like I said it's a really ungrateful job. Its also bl**dy hard to get out of too. People see anything to do with car parking on your CV and you won't even get an interview. Even when talking to employers oni the phone the moment they hear car parking their tone of voice changes and they want you off the phone ASAP. If more people gave parking staff a chance and others didn't park illegally then the industry would collapse.

AltheHibby

Thanks TrickyWicky, that was an interesting and useful post.

kento_2

esmerobbo wrote: »

I see after London Liverpool is the highest issuer, I can see why many people here think SYL and DYL,s are to make the road look pretty.

However the main reason is they really only ever enforced in the city centre and one or two other hot spots! Now they have moved further into the burbs. Also they have shifted a lot of regulation times.
Most places the regs stopped at 6.00pm now an awful lot have moved to 8.00pm.

Just down the road from me they have just spent a fortune putting traffic calming on a crossroads that was a very bad accident spot.
The reason being people would park on DYL,s so you could not see traffic approaching.

Now the islands and the chicanes look all nice and shiny, but the morons are still parking on the DYL,s!

One day last week I saw a bin lorry who had to go around the island on the wrong side, because some tit had parked on the DYL adjacent to the island.
Some people do deserve tickets!

In fact the figures are incorrect. Apparently Liverpool's data includes fines for using bus lanes (many of which have ticket issuing cameras), so the number of parking tickets is actually far lower. The Liverpool Echo made the same error as Martyn in not spotting this anomoly in the data.

esmerobbo

kento wrote: »

In fact the figures are incorrect. Apparently Liverpool's data includes fines for using bus lanes (many of which have ticket issuing cameras), so the number of parking tickets is actually far lower. The Liverpool Echo made the same error as Martyn in not spotting this anomoly in the data.

I agree the bus lanes have added to the number of PCN's issued, (although they had to refund an awful lot from the Lime St CCTV due to incorrect signage) but the original story was about tickets issued by CEO's. Typically the press seem to have got the numbers wrong.