Legalised Highway Robbery (Parking Fines and Clamping)

Member Name: Mick-Gray

Product:	Parking Fines and Clamping
Date:	11/05/01 (104 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: More council Revenue

Disadvantages: see oppinion

The parking officers in our area are employed by a private company, who in turn are employed by the council, they are paid by results the more tickets they give the more that their company earns. This is nothing more than another backdoor tax on the motorist. Since this company has been employed by the council more and more yellow lines and parking restrictions are appearing daily, where it was previously perfectly legal to park. Obviously the council has realized how lucrative this is to them and is doing everything in their power to increase the revenue from parking fines, on the pretext that they are helping the environment. By cutting down on the number of spaces available for people to park, they are creating an environmental nightmare. All they achieve is cars driving round and round looking for somewhere to stop. This has the complete opposite effect. The cars are taking longer to find a space so they are putting more pollutants into the atmosphere. They are using more fuel thereby using up more of the worlds natural resources and of course there is more traffic on the road because they are looking for a place to stop, this causes traffic jams which in turn holds up the public transport and causes even more cars to put more pollutants into the atmosphere and use up even more fuel.

I have no objection, in fact I entirely agree with parking restrictions where a car will cause obstruction, or is a danger to other road users but all to often we are seeing yellow lines and parking meters being put, where previously it was perfectly legal and safe to park. This is being done with one object in mind and that is to produce revenue for the council.

The most blatant and unreasonable parking tax is the tax on residents parking. We are not all fortunate enough to live in an area where there is enough room at the front of our houses to create a parking space in the front garden. The local councils have seized upon this as an opportunity to create a rise
in the community charges by the backdoor. In some instances charging residents up to £150 and more per year for a permit to park in your own street. This not only creates an extra bill for the resident it causes problems if their family and friends wish to come and visit. They are usually presented with parking meters at extortionate prices and time limits. How these people get on if their family want to come and stay with them for a few days I don’t know. I realise that in a lot of these inner city areas there are traffic problems. But if the council want to restrict outsiders parking in residential areas they could still issue the permits free of charge, after all it was free to the resident before hand why not now. As I said just another way of taxing us on the quiet by calling it a help to the environment.

The private companies employed by most councils now, are making a fortune out of us as well as the council, the parking attendants and clampers seem to take such a delight in their work, if anybody saw the T.V programme Clampers they will know that those working in Southwark absolutely revelled in giving as many tickets as they could. The jurisdiction for issuing parking tickets should never have been taken away from the Police force, at least they were not committing the legal highway robbery that is now going on.


I have fallen foul of the subhuman mindless Jobsworths on a couple of occasions. The first was a few years back when the kids were all a bit younger and we had decided on a camping trip to Spain. I had a Mini at the time, as did our friends who were coming with us. We had both arranged to swap cars with our dads for the fortnight so as we could drive to Spain with all the equipment. As this had all been a last minute decision, a trip to Petty France was decided on for us all to arrange our passports, as there was not enough time to guarantee we would have them back in time had we arranged it by post.

We decid
ed to drive because it was an awkward place for us to get to by public transport. This we did and arrived bright and early found two parking meters next to each other. We both put our money in the meters and went off to get our passports. We achieved this well within the time allowed on the meter and returned to the cars.
Imagine our horror when we found that my car had disappeared.

My friend’s car was still in the same position, still with free time available, so our first thought was that mine had been stolen. After enquiries, our attention was drawn by a parking meter attendant, to the fact that the parking bay where I had left my car had a bay suspended hood over the meter. When I explained that it had not been there when I parked my car and that I had put money into the meter, I was told that due to the visit by a foreign dignitary to somewhere in the area locally, all the parking bays in the area had been suspended for security reasons. I was evidently unlucky as my car was the last in the suspended area, and my friend's car, which was in the next bay, was the first in the clear zone. All the explanations and protestations were of course no use as my car had been taken to the pound at the Elephant & Castle, which was about five miles away. We had no option but to pile into my friends Mini, 4 adults and 5 children and off we went to the pound. On arriving we were presented with the bill, which we were told would have to be paid before the car was released. I cannot remember the exact bill as it was now a few years back suffice it to say it was much more than the 4 adults had between them, and as none of us had had the foresight to take credit card or check book with us, we were told we could not take the car and the bill would rise daily due to storage charges. After much pleading and because of the children we were allowed after about half an hour of protest to sign a form promising to pay and the car was released. Needless to say we p
rotested and appealed afterwards but to no avail. I am still incensed about the inflexible attitude that was taken by all involved.

Apart from a few parking tickets I have had for stopping quickly on a yellow line to pop into a shop, which I suppose was my fault as I knew I was on a yellow line, the only other axe I have to grind personally was when we were recently getting ready to pull away for a weekend with the caravan. The road I live in has parking allowed on opposite sides of the road on alternate days. Being quite close to a railway station people drive here park and then go off to work by train. As a result of this I paved over my front garden, which gave me, enough room for the caravan and two cars. I always park the caravan tow bar to the front of the house for security reasons and the two cars alongside. This means I have to take the cars off of the drive for a short time whilst I turn the caravan before hooking up and putting the other car back on the drive. The road was quiet, there was no traffic but all the spaces on the correct side of the road were taken so I quickly parked both cars outside my house and turned the caravan. I went inside to call my wife to help me check all the lights etc were working properly and in the space of time it took me to go in and come back out I had a ticket on both cars. There was not another person or car in sight except for the flying parking attendant disappearing round the corner on his moped. The crime I had committed of parking my cars in a quiet road where there was no traffic cost me £30 per ticket £60 in total for ten minuets parking.

Of course the attendant could see what was happening hence the quick getaway, but he was happy he had added two more tickets to his quota and between the council and the parking company they were £60 better off, as I said legalised highway robbery

Mick Gray

Summary: see opinion