Off Topic - Parking Wardens
 

In uk.transport.london, Paul belched forth and ejected the following:

On Friday evening, 22 December, I was driving my Sainsbury's van along
Westbourne Terrace, London W2.
At the junction of Westbourne Terrace and Craven Road, a black cab jumped
the lights that had changed to red. It collided with a car that then knocked
over one of the traffic lights, severely injuring a passing pedestrian.
As a first aider, I parked my van (on a double yellow line) in Craven Road,
and went to assist.
The poor unfortunate pedestrian literally had her head split open.
Fortunately, a passing doctor on his way to St Mary's Hospital was able to
deal with things better than me.
Although St Mary's Hospital is a mere two minutes away, I was informed that
the HEMS helicopter had been requested.

Whilst all of this was going on, there was a fair amount of congestion.
Traffic was moving, albeit very slowly.
On returning to my van, I was greeted with the sight of a parking warden
issuing me with a ticket. When I explained to the warden the reason for may
being parked where I was, I was informed that I could appeal against the
ticket.

It beggars belief to see the kind of morons that are employed on behalf of
the City of Westminster to 'harass' motorists.

Sorry, you appear to be saying this as if it's news?!

Obviously, all that matters to the wardens is to issue as many tickets as
possible in order to achieve their commission.

I appreciate that parking wardens do not have the easiest or most popular
job in the world, but surely a degree of common sense is one of the
requisites for the job?

No, the reason they do it is because they're ****ing lazy and have some
deep seated revenge thing going on.

Any comments?

Yes, work for Ocado instead.

Off Topic - Parking Wardens
 

In uk.transport.london, Colin Rosenstiel belched forth and ejected the
following:

In article , chris117@btinternet
com (Chris Read) wrote:

"Colin Rosenstiel" wrote:

You misunderstand how parking enforcement works nowadays. The
parking attendant (not a warden) is there simply to issue tickets.
He or she is only concerned with whether a parking infringement has
occurred, not with the reasons.

The council appeals system is there to deal with reasons why the
infringement was reasonable. Contact the council and explain the
circumstances. I can't imagine that they won't then cancel the
ticket. If they don't, appeal to the independent parking adjudication

service.

In other words, someone (the attendant/their employer/the local
authority, or a combination of), makes a lot of money from issuing
tickets without any regard for what one might term 'common sense'.

To deal with the vast number of tickets which are consequently
disputed, an elaborate multi-stage appeals process is then put in
place. Funded by the taxpayer, no doubt.

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.

How do you know it's cancelled?

It's a lot more bloody inconvenient to have to contest a ticket that may
drag on for months than just not be issued one in the first place.

Off Topic - Parking Wardens
 

In article ,
(Whinging Courier) wrote:

In uk.transport.london, Colin Rosenstiel belched forth and ejected
the following:

In article ,
(Chris Read) wrote:

"Colin Rosenstiel" wrote:

You misunderstand how parking enforcement works nowadays. The
parking attendant (not a warden) is there simply to issue
tickets. He or she is only concerned with whether a parking
infringement has occurred, not with the reasons.

The council appeals system is there to deal with reasons why
infringement was reasonable. Contact the council and explain
the circumstances. I can't imagine that they won't then cancel
the ticket. If they don't, appeal to the independent parking
adjudication service.

In other words, someone (the attendant/their employer/the local
authority, or a combination of), makes a lot of money from
issuing tickets without any regard for what one might term
'common sense'.

To deal with the vast number of tickets which are consequently
disputed, an elaborate multi-stage appeals process is then put
in place. Funded by the taxpayer, no doubt.

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.

How do you know it's cancelled?

It's a lot more bloody inconvenient to have to contest a ticket
that may drag on for months than just not be issued one in the
first place.

Not if they adhere to the standards adopted by Cambridge City Council,
amongst others.

--
Colin Rosenstiel.

Off Topic - Parking Wardens
 

In uk.transport.london, Colin Rosenstiel belched forth and ejected the
following:

In article ,
(Whinging Courier) wrote:

In uk.transport.london, Colin Rosenstiel belched forth and ejected
the following:

In article ,
(Chris Read) wrote:

"Colin Rosenstiel" wrote:

You misunderstand how parking enforcement works nowadays. The
parking attendant (not a warden) is there simply to issue
tickets. He or she is only concerned with whether a parking
infringement has occurred, not with the reasons.

The council appeals system is there to deal with reasons why
infringement was reasonable. Contact the council and explain
the circumstances. I can't imagine that they won't then cancel
the ticket. If they don't, appeal to the independent parking
adjudication service.

In other words, someone (the attendant/their employer/the local
authority, or a combination of), makes a lot of money from
issuing tickets without any regard for what one might term
'common sense'.

To deal with the vast number of tickets which are consequently
disputed, an elaborate multi-stage appeals process is then put
in place. Funded by the taxpayer, no doubt.

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.

How do you know it's cancelled?

It's a lot more bloody inconvenient to have to contest a ticket
that may drag on for months than just not be issued one in the
first place.

Not if they adhere to the standards adopted by Cambridge City Council,
amongst others.

Ah. Civilisation.

As you were :)p

Off Topic - Parking Wardens
 

In article ,
"Paul" wrote:

Whilst all of this was going on, there was a fair amount of congestion.
Traffic was moving, albeit very slowly.
On returning to my van, I was greeted with the sight of a parking warden
issuing me with a ticket. When I explained to the warden the reason for may
being parked where I was, I was informed that I could appeal against the
ticket.

Had the ticket been issued at the time you spoke to the warden? If not,
you would be better placed to just drive away. To be issued, it must be
afixed to the vehicle or handed to the driver.

It beggars belief to see the kind of morons that are employed on behalf of
the City of Westminster to 'harass' motorists.

They are not actually employed by Westminster CC.

Obviously, all that matters to the wardens is to issue as many tickets as
possible in order to achieve their commission.

Almost certainly, yes.

I appreciate that parking wardens do not have the easiest or most popular
job in the world, but surely a degree of common sense is one of the
requisites for the job?

Definitely not. A willingness to suspend all rational arguments, and
refuse to engage in conversations about the rights and wrongs of what
one is doing, is positively helpful at the recruitment stage. It is
tested for, in order to weed out those that are likely to be swayed by
argument or "common sense".

Any comments?

The system is run in most, if not all, boroughs to maximise revenue by
having as many tickets as possible issued. The job of issuing tickets is
subject to compulsory competitive tendering. The system will not improve
until parking ticket revenues, and other "civil" fines like penalty
fares, bus lane penalties, are handed directly to the treasury and not
pocketed by the rules makers, and enforcers in one, the local councils.
The current system gives them a perverse incentive to make up stupid
rules and be officious about enforcing them.

Having said that, you should appeal to the Director of Transportation at
Westminster at once.

--

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


--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Off Topic - Parking Wardens
 

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?

--

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

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Off Topic - Parking Wardens
 

In article ,
(U n d e r a c h i e v e r) wrote:

*Subject:* Off Topic - Parking Wardens
*From:* U n d e r a c h i e v e r
*Date:* Thu, 28 Dec 2006 08:26:00 +0000

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.

Not at all. Quite a high proportion of Cambridge tickets are cancelled.

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?

You misunderstand the new system. When did you last see a traffic warden
under the old system?

--
Colin Rosenstiel.

Off Topic - Parking Wardens
 

In article ,
AndreaC wrote:


Plus of course, the warden more than likely doesn't care if you
successfully appeal against the ticket - they've already got their
commission for issuing it (or am I just too cynical?)

It depends on the terms of the contract between the council and the
ticket issuing company; and that company and the employees, both of
which are treated like a closely guarded commercial secret. In many
cases there are claw back procedures the council can follow if tickets
are wrongly issued. Is this then clawed back from the individual
attendant? I strongly doubt it unless they issued a very high proportion
of duds. But I doubt this will extend to those cancelled on
discretionary grounds, as in the case we're discussing, so yes, the
attendant is now one step closer to hitting their target by issuing
tickets in circumstances where it is wholly inappropriate.

And don't blame the attendant: they are doing the job they have been
instructed and paid to do. The system provides the wrong commercial
incentives to the wrong people, this kind of behaviour is the inevitable
result.

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Off Topic - Parking Wardens
 

In article ,
(Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:

cix email? wow! is that still going?

In article ,
(U n d e r a c h i e v e r) wrote:

*Subject:* Off Topic - Parking Wardens
*From:* U n d e r a c h i e v e r
*Date:* Thu, 28 Dec 2006 08:26:00 +0000

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.

Not at all. Quite a high proportion of Cambridge tickets are cancelled.

Well, I was commenting on London. In London a significant proportion of
tickets are cancelled because they were issued for non-offences (eg
loading/unloading taking place); the proportion cancelled on
discretionary grounds is very, very small. The proportion cancelled on
discretionary grounds in Cambridge might be a lot higher, as, I guess
most of the recipients live in Cambridge and the council might not want
to upset local residents and get a bad press. Westminster, along with
most London boroughs I guess, mainly issue to non-residents and really
don't have the same incentives to be judicious in their application of
the law -- they behave as though they just want the money.

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?

You misunderstand the new system. When did you last see a traffic warden
under the old system?

I know the new system extremely well. And in many respects a locally run
enforcement operation could be made to be effective and fair: but at the
moment they are run for profit.

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Off Topic - Parking Wardens
 

No, the reason they do it is because they're ****ing lazy and have some
deep seated revenge thing going on.

Any comments?

Yes, work for Ocado instead.


For this reason, I refuse to render assistance or aid to anyone within the
bounds of London since my act of humanity and charity will result in
unnecessary legal proceedings against me by the authorities I am supposedly
doing a service for.

**** 'em.