London Banter - View Single Post - Off Topic

U n d e r a c h i e v e r · December 28th 06, 07:26 AM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:
No. You stop contrary to parking regulations, you get a ticket. If you
had a lawful excuse that didn't become apparent in time, the ticket is
cancelled. Seems fair enough to me.

It's not quiet as simple as that. Police officers, and traffic wardens
employed by the police, had discretion not to issue tickets under the
old, criminal, system. They also had no financial incentive to issue
tickets that they knew someone else would cancel on appeal. Under the
decriminalised system discretion has moved from the street to the town
hall, and it is rarely, if ever, exercised.

Stopping to help at the scene of an accident isn't a lawful excuse for
parking on a yellow line, by the way, so a good sense of discretion in
these cases is essential. What the parking attendant should have been
doing is helping the injured and/or helping to keep traffic moving by
directing it and/or summoning help on their police radio, which is what
would have happened if they were a police traffic warden. Instead this
jobsworth issues pointless parking penalties! And it seems fair enough
to you?

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U n d e r a c h i e v e r

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