My council run wardens have a tendency to drive around looking for illegally parked cars to slap a ticket on - I suppose that this means that they can "do" more cars.
However they more often than not park on single and double yellows to issue their tickets. Is this "legal"?
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Get a photo if you can - local papers tend to love this sort of thing!
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Saw the exact same thing in Ashton on Christmas Eve
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Is it legal? Would have to see what is in the Order but feel almost sure there will be an exemption for them to do this.
DVD
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This very thing got my goat up too!. I saw one of the local parking wardens parked in a pay-and-display bay whilst he went about his ticketing business, taking up a very valuable space that would be paid for by a member of the public parking there (we have lost 6000 spaces in the city in the last year when the council pulled down three multi-storey car parks and have yet to think about replacing them).
I wrote to the local council who replied, smugly, that the law allows such parking wardens to park where they like (with the exception of causing an obstruction etc) whilst conducting their business.
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I know we're all supposed to be anti-traffic warden, but this is a bit daft, surely? If a warden drives down a street which is double-yellowed, and sees a car parked there, would you expect him to drive three blocks to find a space, then hike back to the car?
I would have thought it's reasonably obvious that in most cases of illegal parking, in order to apply the ticket a van based warden will have to park illegally himself, so I'd be very surprised if they didn't have exemption
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This is exactly anagous to the fact that police cars chasing a suspect are entitled to ignore speed limits. Would it be sensible to require officers chasing a speeding motorist to allow him/her to disappear into the distance while they kept to the limit?
Those who are above the law (in effect) should however act with discretion. As I recall, all marked police cars are exempt whether they are chasing or not. IMHO, this places a duty on them to act reasonably and not abuse the privilege they exercise. Over the years, I have seen examples of appalling driving from marked police cars and instances where the use of a speed greater than the limit was not justified*.
Actions such as this simply contribute to a "them and us" attitude and erode the esteem in which police used to be held. This applies all the more today, when speed enforcement is becoming steadily more mechanical (literally and figuratively) and less sympathetic.
*example; how many times have you seen a police car in the distance behind, checked your speed to make sure you are at the limit not above, and seen them catch up with you but stay behind? If they caught up then they must have been faster than you. If they were attending an emergency then they would have shown blue lights and overtaken you.
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"This is exactly anagous to the fact that police cars chasing a suspect are entitled to ignore speed limits. Would it be sensible to require officers chasing a speeding motorist to allow him/her to disappear into the distance while they kept to the limit?"
Slightly stretching a point.[1]
Do you know I thought this was exactly what Humberside Police are considering. :(
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[1] the offence where this policy might be applied is where the only known offence at the time is a paperwork offence. You know what I mean, no tax, no insurance, no MOT..... madness!
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I know we're all supposed to be anti-traffic warden, but this is a bit daft, surely? If a warden drives down a street which is double-yellowed, and sees a car parked there, would you expect him to drive three blocks to find a space, then hike back to the car? I would have thought it's reasonably obvious that in most cases of illegal parking, in order to apply the ticket a van based warden will have to park illegally himself, so I'd be very surprised if they didn't have exemption
Why can't they walk or if they really need to get around, jump on a push bike. What's going on in the world? Has everyone forgottne how to walk. Anyway enough of today, I'm off to jump in my car to go home (with my bike in the boot).
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I suppose it's down to how large an area they have to cover.
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Our wardens cover about 25 sq miles I suppose and they zip around on scooters, enables them to park up easily and pounce almost unnoticed!
Cockle
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Scooters? Not those electric things which people constantly argue about their legality? Or even worse, the petrol ones, pink fluffy dice on wheels?
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No, not the electric ones. Our wardens are pretty brave to ride them I reckon. Mind you they were brave just before Xmas.
Upmarket part of town has a no parking band between 14:00 and 15:00 in the streets around the railway station to stop those nasty commuters littering the streets with their cars and making the area look untidy during the day.
Local councillor complained that the wardens weren't policing it very well so down they came to check out the area mob-handed. They found lots of illegally parked cars and stuck tickets on them all, only thing was, it was the local school's nativity play that afternoon, attended by lots of local big-wigs......
The letters to the local paper were wonderful to behold, mostly along the lines of 'the restrictions are only to stop the commuters, not the rest of us who live round here'. Thus far the wardens' boss has stuck to his guns, 'you park illegally, you get a ticket'.
Cockle
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I'm not allowed to say ... ahem ... trump?
Sorry :o
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The point I was making was that the warden I saw was taking up a valuable pay and display bay. When the local council takes away something like 6000 spaces in the past year or so and replaces them with a fraction of spaces, parking is very, very, very tight.
And it isn't a Fiat Panda they have-nope, small MPV's for one warden. The old traffic wardens used motorcycles to get about, but the new comfy looking parking wardens have cars to go from one street to the next. The vehicles are not even marked-I wonder why?
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