Paying a fine

ohmsoft

These enforcers are employed to do this role so their is no question of prioritisation. They can and are employed in addition to police and other law enforcment people. I am certain that the revenue they collect are more than enough to pay their salaries and related overheads. The surpluss is then reinvested into the local councils - this means that tax payers don't pay quite as much to clean up after those who litter the place!

Its a fair solution as only those who drop something are fined. Of course, it also acts as a deterent against littering.

I really don't see any point in having a law against something and not enforcing it?

tigtag02

I have been on two different ends of the scale of this one:

I am as far from a little bug as you can get yet I would through my ciggy buts (, I dont know, I just DID ) I got stopped, fined £50, tried cheekily to argue my case, was told to carry a portable ashtry so I paid up. Learnt my lesson and NEVER dropped one since.

Roll forward a couple of years to me & OH now been non smokers. He recived a FPN in the post to say that he had thrown a ciggy butt from the car window. We were prepared to go all the way with this one but they finally backed down and the FPN was quashed. (Aften some rather harsly worded emails to the *top dogs*)

My point is that I totally deserved that fine, OH didnt but all fingers pointed at the council *pulling* number plates in order to issue the FPN's ~ I mean, how many smokers would have just paid up, I reckon 90%+

MORPH3US

tigtag02 wrote: »

OH didnt but all fingers pointed at the council *pulling* number plates in order to issue the FPN's ~ I mean, how many smokers would have just paid up, I reckon 90%+

How did they know that the person driving the car was a smoker if they didn't see him throwing a cigarette end out of the window?

tigtag02

MORPH3US wrote: »

How did they know that the person driving the car was a smoker if they didn't see him throwing a cigarette end out of the window?

They DIDNT ~ thats my point. The driver of the car WASNT a smoker. At best the council rep was mistaken at worst an out and out liar!!

RAMBLER

Just to alter the topic slightly to enforcement officers - a friend of mine is a traffic warden... bless him, anyway his experience is that there are so many people who try and take the !!!! and park whereever they want to and then are suprised they get ticketed.
That being said, he's experienced other parking operators becoming ticketers on high. They hide, wait, stalk, basically to ticket as many people as they can - probably as a result of being abused so much!

The solution - Why don't we all try being fair and reasonable? That being said you still have a beaucratic machine - so don't know what you do ablout that??

j-lo1972uk

tigtag02 wrote: »

They DIDNT ~ thats my point. The driver of the car WASNT a smoker. At best the council rep was mistaken at worst an out and out liar!!

This has just happened to me....I got a letter from my local council out of the blue claiming that an 'enforcement officer' had witnessed someone in my car disposing of a cigarette out of the window at such and such a time on such and such a day saying I was being fined £75 but could pay £50 if I paid within seven days of the issue of the notice....now...I am a smoker, but abhor littering myself and always use the ashtray in my car....I have no recollection of throwing anything out of the window but was driving home around the time this 'enforcement officer' claimed.....The fixed penalty notice had a number to ring....and, bearing in mind that I didn't get the fixed penalty notice until 4 days after the issue date, I rang the number several times per day, every day....number just kept cutting off....I tried the complaint dept, which was either (unsuprisingly!) permanently engaged or I was on hold for so long my break at work was over....
Due to all this council red tape, I missed the deadline for the lower fine....continued to try and get in contact....as I wanted them to prove that I'd done what they claimed (as I said....I'm fairly certain that I didn't litter but may have flicked ash out of my window which may have been mistaken)....I eventualy got told (when I got through to complaints) that they don't have to prove it...enforcement officers are trustworthy people (yeah right...like all council officials and politicians! Lol)....by this time, my two weeks were up....so i felt i had no choice but to pay, or face going to court (I couldn't stand the stress of that at the mo-am in the middle of moving abroad for a new job and have so much to do already without worrying about that...)
I do feel very aggrieved about it tho....and wish now that I'd had the time and energy to fight it....its so frustrating....every week the bin men come and leave LOADS of rubbish in their wake in our street but no-one fines them!!!
Broken Britain huh...no wonder I'm off abroad!!! Even if I'm 75 quid lighter!! :rotfl:

FatAndy

shellsuit wrote: »

What's to stop people who get caught doing this, giving a false name?

Do they ask for ID and if so, what if you didn't have any on you?

I was travelling up the Wirral on a Merseyrail train a couple of weeks ago and an enforcement officer caught someone with his feet on a seat. This is an offence on Merseyrail and they operate a zero tolerance approach, I think you face a £50 fine if you're caught. I did try to eavesdrop (as you do) but I couldn't hear everything that was said. One thing I did pick up was that the enforcement officer called someone on his mobile to check that the passenger lived at the address he'd given, presumably someone back in the office has access to the electoral roll? I'm not sure if litter enforcement officers do this as well but be warned, you could get caught out if you try to give a false name and address.

p.s. As far as I'm concerned litter louts deserve any punishment they get and I'm pleased to see that zero tolerance approaches are being adopted.

triticale

Never mind a false name, what reason is there for someone give any name at all?

Would the enforcement officer call for police backup if someone just walked away? :S

Storck

triticale wrote: »

Never mind a false name, what reason is there for someone give any name at all?

Would the enforcement officer call for police backup if someone just walked away? :S

He would have problems walking away on a train unless they were planning to jump. :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

FatAndy

Storck wrote: »

He would have problems walking away on a train unless they were planning to jump. :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Actually it's not that difficult to do a runner on the Wirral Line. It takes 41 minutes to travel from Chester to Liverpool but there are 15 stops along the way. Apart from the Bache to Capenhurst leg which takes six minutes the train stops literally every two or three minutes. If you're quick and agile enough you could probably get away without too much trouble. Not that I'm advocating this of course.

http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/en/s/timetable/details?id=1&return=false&callingPage=t