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.
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?

Any comments?


Paul

"Paul" wrote in message
...
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.
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?

Any comments?

How was the warden supposed to know that you parked up to
help at the incident, and not simply a van that was already
parked before it happened?

tim

It is a good point that you have raised. However, it does appear that
delivery vehicles are deliberately 'targeted' as (in my case) the company,
rather than the driver pays the fine.

Paul

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?)

A

"AndreaC" wrote in message
...

Paul Wrote:
It is a good point that you have raised. However, it does appear that
delivery vehicles are deliberately 'targeted' as (in my case) the
company,
rather than the driver pays the fine.

Paul

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?)

They don't get comission (but they might have targets)

tim

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

On Tue, Dec 26, 2006 at 04:32:11PM -0000, Paul wrote:

It is a good point that you have raised. However, it does appear that
delivery vehicles are deliberately 'targeted' as (in my case) the company,
rather than the driver pays the fine.

Or perhaps they appear to be "targetted" because they park incorrectly
more often and so *deserve* more tickets. Unfortunately the fines don't
appear to be high enough, as I see the same trucks making the same
deliveries week after week, each time with a parking ticket on them.

It would all be fixed by my fine idea of putting fork lifts on the front
of bendy buses and using them to stab into the offending vehicles and
lift them onto the bus roof.

--
David Cantrell | Official London Perl Mongers Bad Influence

Do not be afraid of cooking, as your ingredients will know and misbehave
-- Fergus Henderson

"Paul" typed


Any comments?


Appeal.

You local rag would *love* to run a 'Parking Warden hits Good Samaritan'
headline on its slowest news week of the year...

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.

In article , moggychops@tiscali
co.uk (Paul) wrote:

[Accident details snipped]

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.
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?

Any comments?

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.

--
Colin Rosenstiel.

"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.

Chris