... an offence to use a bus lane ... >>
Today's BBC London and other media carried this story:
"Bloomsbury street that makes £2.5m a year in traffic fines
Wardens and cameras in Southampton Row in Bloomsbury, which is only 500 yards long, have snared almost 23,000 drivers in the past 12 months — giving out fines of up to £120 a time.
Camden's parking wardens and cameras have caught drivers in Southampton Row for a variety of offences, including driving in a bus lane, making an illegal U-turn and parking illegally. "
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jbif,
Southampton Row is potentially part of my daily commute (though I usually avoid it by being a block further west). I'd wager that almost all of the cash collected is from blatant obstruction of the bus lane by delivery vehicles together with a few illegal u-turns. Delay to buses on this stretch was one of my main reasons for getting the folding bike.
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jbif, Southampton Row is potentially part of my daily commute ... >>
My "manor" is/was bounded by Bloomsbury, Holborn, Cheapside, Bank, Moorgate, Farringdon. I know most of the roads in this area - by walking and/or riding the bus through them.
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I know the way about my City as well as anyone...all the back streets and short cuts.
I found myself last week in the snow being forced into a road I didn't want to use, meaning to go straight ahead at the lights.
I couldn't see the arrows on the road due to snow and the bus in front was obscuring any signs. OK, I thought I'll follow the bus and take a right and I'm back on course...which I did.
It occurred to me after I'd turned, that there were only buses in that road, apart from me.
I spent a couple of days thinking I might have got into a ' buses only ' section.
I was watching the north west news later when the weather girl came on, standing by the same road......there were lots of buses and cars going by...........phew !
Ted
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It's all about entrapment and ££££££££
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I suppose that if we funded the councils properly then they would not need to raise money like this.....!
But I honestly suspect that some authorities will never have enough money and power to satisfy their needs!
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But I honestly suspect that some authorities will never have enough money and power to satisfy their needs!
Correct. They would just spend it on a better indexed linked foaming coffee machine that 'walked' to their desks to spare them the 'pain' of natural movement.
Yours sincynically,
MD
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>>Just that we're soft targets. >>
The perfect phrase.
But I honestly suspect that some authorities will never have enough money and power to satisfy their needs!>>
Again, put in a nutshell. Something to do with pensions?
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fat slugs sat in fat slug chairs claiming fat slug money for fat slugs
did i mention fat slugs having meetings about having reasons to employ more flat slugs so the common motorist can be quivered into paying out for fines so more fat slugs can sit in fat slug chairs looking at more film to extract more fines?
how do these people sleep?
who are these people married to?
do they talk to their wives girlfriends mothers lovers? about their job
do they live all together in partnership communes?
are they monsters from mars in human clothing?
glad i can sleep at night
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>>glad i can sleep at night >>
The one redeeming feature for you and me.
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Dont think UK is a nasty place to live. In france on hols a couple of years ago I got nobbled for 140 euros on the spot for doing something wrong (still dont know exactly what because I couldnt understand the french copper, but something to do with being in the wrong lane at the wrong time) Those french coppers dont spend much time in charm school, pretty forceful and abrupt.
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My little town still has free car parking, right outside the shops. Its not why I live there, but it does give it a certain glow.
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glad i can sleep at night
Thought you were a small car dealer BB?
;-p
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Its always been a bugbear of mine the way we treat trivial motoring incidents as an 'offence'.
An offence to me is a crime, with a victim.
So why venturing into a bus lane, or overstaying on a parking bay, or drifting into some feckless councils targets for a similar action is so heavily and enthusiastically punished I will never know.
In Newcastle, taxis and vans all use the bus lanes. Why don't they get fined, its marked as a Bus lane.
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venturing into a bus lane, or overstaying on a parking bay, or drifting into some feckless councils targets for a similar action is so heavily and enthusiastically punished I will never know. >>
see this article from today's Telegraph:
www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/6968607/Motorist...l
" ... The cameras are being used to take pictures of those infringing parking rules and generate an automatic fine which is sent through the post 14 days later.
Thirty four councils have discreetly taken advantage of the power to use CCTV and it is estimated they generate £3million of revenue every year. ... "
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The same thing happened to SWMBO in Oxford (the most anti-car city in the country). Ambiguous signs, which on talking to locals have caught them out before, and a split second decision taken which resulted in a fine through the post.
In our case, we paid up (we committed the offence, fair cop), and quietly spent the several hundred pounds worth of Christmas gift shopping that we were going to do in the town the following weekend somewhere else (at no particular inconvenience to ourselves). It cost Oxford a lot more than it cost us, and if everyone else did the same at these kind of zealously enforced traffic/parking fines, the books wouldn't balance, and they'd be stopped.
Just vote with your feet (and wallet)
Cheers
DP
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Just vote with your feet (and wallet)
I second that, Durham became extremely greedy when they gave NCP the right to cover the city in parking meters. The result was exorbitant parking charges and the owner of NCP gets a nice new yacht.
Therefore I no longer spend any money in Durham shops, I go to the out of town areas and use the internet a lot more. Stupid, greedy short sighted councils.
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At the risk of a silly question. How is boycotting retailers in a given town going to help? It's not their fault that their council have imposed unpopular restrictions is it? Most retailers of my aquaintance contrarily campaign to have better and cheaper parking near them. Punishing them is like beating a medieval whipping boy. It might make the beater feel better but the actual target has been missed and an innocent party injured. Retailers are up against huge economic pressures at the moment and would be the first to want to encourage shoppers into their towns.
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Stupid greedy short sighted councils.
I live on a "local" high road, the majority of the traditional shops have gone, the owner of the local hardware store (family business that goes back 150 years) said his rates had over trebled in 10 years, he pointed to the type of shop that have guzzled up our high road and said the council know they can charge "them" anything so ?real? businesses go under as they are no longer viable as profit making concerns. His shop has now gone it's now yet another ethnic grocery store (one of at least 15 within 100 yards) bookended by a Tesco and a Co-Op ? how do they find customers?...
By ?them? he means the strings of greengrocers and takeaways owned by ?newcomers?, of course they are generally owned by the same people and as they are often fronts for other rackets, they do not need to make a profit, on the books they can say they've sold 10,000kg of sprouts and that's 10,000kg of sprouts worth of money cleansed, also the shops provide a legitimate excuse for lorries to constantly move between here and, say, Turkey. It's no coincidence that the man who owns these shops is known to be the local drugs lord. On the plus side it means some of his lines are one third of the cost of Tesco's. The council know full-well what's going on (the same thing has been happening in other areas for 20 years) but they get their slice of the action at the cost of the fabric of our once homogeneous society.
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It's no coincidence that the man who owns these shops is known to be the local drugs lord. On the plus side it means some of his lines are one third of the cost of Tesco's.
Didn't know Tesco's sold that kind of stuff
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>> Stupid greedy short sighted councils. >>
It's no coincidence that the man who owns these shops is known to be the local drugs lord. On the plus side it means some of his lines are one third of the cost of Tesco's. The council know full-well what's going on (the same thing has been happening in other areas for 20 years) but they get their slice of the action at the cost of the fabric of our once homogeneous society.
Steve Lee, I think I like you.
MD
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Just vote with your feet (and wallet)
The councils that set these traps are the same ones that complain that their town centres are dieing, and wonder why. I, and I am sure many others spend our cash where it is appreciated, and effort is made to make it easy and pleasant, not a stressful battle with bureaucracy.
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Just vote with your feet (and wallet) >>
Unfortunately, all that does is that the Council finds other ways to make up the shortfall and finds ways to punish the motorist, shopkeepers and ratepayers.
Until people take direct action that impacts on the Councillors who make the policy, nothing happens. See the example below of one group of residents who did what the Council would not:
tinyurl.com/yebkgua
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At a low level, the other thing I find very mean-spirited, is those council parking meters where one has to fill in the car reg. details. Presumably this is so you can't offer a few remaining minutes on your ticket to a fellow motorist who may want to dash into a shop for only 15 mins or so.
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and wo betide you if you are one of those people who mixes numbers up Cheeky on the receipt even though its plain to see you committed an administrative error
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Maybe some of you guys should become councillors and sort it all out?
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Maybe some of you guys should become councillors and sort it all out?
I'm too honest. ;-)
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Quite, WT...
Its all well and good us moaning, but the number of cars we have in a very small area means that we have to have quite a lot of restrictions on what we can and connot do (parking, speeds, use of lanes, the list is endless) just to keep things moving, if we didn't have those restrictions I reckon gridlock would arrive pretty quickly in most large towns and cities... its bad enough when people ignore the current restrictions, just think what would happen if there weren't any!
Personally I agree with SS, there's far worse places than GB to live.
Edited by b308 on 12/01/2010 at 14:21
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I think the problem is that a large percentage of the public wont follow rules unless there is strong penalty for infringement.Maybe if we were like the swiss and always followed rules then we wouldnt need all these measures.
Out premises face a main road and bounded by a side road on each side. Forecourt is always jam packed, but we have an entrace to the main road and onto each side road (close to where they join the main road). There are double yellows all around the frontage but you wouldnt believe how many people park up and block our entrances, then toddle off to do their shopping. All types and sorts of people. Very annoying when we have customers or parts delivery getting blocked in and then have to shunt cars around the forecort to let them out one of the other entrances.
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"I think the problem is that a large percentage of the public wont follow rules unless there is strong penalty for infringement."
I agree - Nice as it would be to allow a bit more discretion in enforcement unfortunately there is a significant portion of the population who don't think the law applies to them. My own view is that we should have far stricter enforcement of parking regulations in towns and cities. A lot of people are either too idle to walk a few hundred yards or too mean to pay to park their £20,000 vehicle. Am heartily tired of cars causing obstructions while the owner uses a cash machine or cars parked in bus bays whilst the driver waits for their fat wife to emerge from Marks and Spencer
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Nice as it would be to allow a bit more discretion in enforcement >>
where the transgression is due to bad signage, or a momentary lapse in concentration etc., but not when the culprit deliberately flouts the rules.
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where the transgression is due to bad signage or a momentary lapse in concentration etc. but not when the culprit deliberately flouts the rules.
Agreed, but most of the transgressions are not due to bad signage, but bad observation and deliberate flouting.
A good example of it is usually to be found in you local paper, which usually starts on about how the poor driver has been taken to the cleaners by the horrible hitler-styled traffic warden (or whatever they are called) only to find out that actually the driver himself knowingly broke the rules and just wanted to find someone else to blame...
I accept that there are occassions when we do something wrong by accident (a moment of inattention for instance), but I can't see how we could possibly seperate out the "innocent mistake" from the majority of "deliberate flouting".
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there's far worse places than GB to live.
Oh, I dunno. One of the Nigerian military governments decided to have a blitz on the Lagos 'go-slow' (permanent semi-gridlock). I don't think the blitz had much effect, but the means employed were very direct, in the military fashion.
Soldiers backing up the traffic police - smiling characters who during some periods would stop your taxi or car and blandly ask what you were going to give them - would, when they identified an obstructive or otherwise offensive driver, chase him down the road lashing him with canes or koboko (lengths of knotted cord). I must say I would be happy to see our police and army doing the same to some of the drivers I see, although I wouldn't fancy it myself.
Nigerians in the car-owning classes hated it, but the overwhelming majority, too poor to have cars and tired of being scorned and pushed around by richer folk, regarded it as entertainment, like the mass shootings of armed robbers on Bar Beach which used to be well attended. For those too busy to attend, the national press printed gruesome photos on the front page.
Edited by Lud on 12/01/2010 at 15:46
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