Cyprus-Forum.com

[miltiades]

Judge for your selves from a recent case reported:

got £50 fine because warden can't tell time
by JOEL TAYLOR - Tuesday, July 15, 2008

A MOTORIST was wrongly given a parking ticket because the warden did not know how to tell the time.

Dave Alsop was stunned to be given a £50 fine despite clearly having more than 20 minutes left on his parking ticket.

The warden had used a calculator to work out the expiry time - but made the mistake of assuming there were 100 minutes in an hour.


'I tried to explain to the warden calculators work in decimals but he didn't have a clue,' said 29-year-old Mr Alsop.

'He thought he was doing things correctly. He just carried on doing the same on other parked cars.'

Mr Alsop, from Devon, parked his car at 2.49pm and paid £1.20 for 75 minutes - which meant he was covered until 4.04pm. He returned to his vehicle at 3.41pm.

But the warden entered 14.49 into and calculator and added .75 to get the 'time' of 15.24.

Mr Alsop has received an apology from the council - and an assurance that the blundering warden had received training in how to tell the time. 'This was an error by the civil enforcement officer, who is new to the job,' a spokesman for Torbay Council said.

'He incorrectly calculated the expiry time when issuing this and two other penalty charge notices, which have all been cancelled without any money having been paid.

'We have also provided additional training to prevent this happening again.' No other wardens were forced to take the time-telling course but a 'briefing message' was sent to all officers, the spokesman added.

[CBBB]

So that is why I am always getting parking tickets!

[miltiades]

Some time last year one of my vans was clamped . The engineer rung me and I then rung the number given to me in order to pay the DR charge . A woman with a thick accent answered the phone after about 15 minutes or so , and proceeded asking me for my card details . On giving her all details she asked in broken English the address where the card was registered at . I gave her the number followed by "LONDON ROAD " which is the road that the card is registered at. She then asked " how do you spell it ?" !! I repeated LONDON ROAD , she again asked me to spell it. !!!
Thick bastards !

[Crivens]

I remember once getting caught out by clampers by a local McDonalds. I popped in for 5 mins on a sunday, even though was a taxi rank, but thought it was ok because lots of other normal cars were there too. Some thug looking bloke was waiting to pounce though as they had clamped me quickly by the time I got back (not the other cars though). Apparently is a popular trap. Scum...

Happy story though was years ago half my company got clamped for parking in Reading train station late at night for a work do. Most just paid the fine and grumbled, but a friend of mine worked out a back hander with the clamper thug. Got it done for half the price basically. Really chummed up to the guy and once got friendly was done on the cheap for a few notes in his back pocket. Nice. My friend had noted down the guys name and everything, so next day phoned his company and got him sacked. Excellent. Once again, scum bags...

Cheers

[Paphitis]

Miltiades, do you not have anything better to do but whinge about traffic wardens?

[AQ]

This is an article on the subject by Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail.
I used to think he was a right wing reactionary. But I find myself nodding in agreement when I read his articles these days.

Cyprus full time becomes more attractive day by day!


Britain's punishment culture is a one-way parking ticket to Hell
A committee of MPs has woken up to the fact that Britain's motorists are being screwed into the Tarmac.
Parking fines topped £1.2billion last year and enforcement ranges from merely over-zealous to demanding money with menaces.
In some areas, drivers are 400 times more likely to be punished for a minor parking infringement than they were when Labour came in to power.
That's right ? four hundred times. And the amount extorted in fines and clamping charges has doubled.
Alistair Carmichael, the Lib Dem transport spokesman, said: "The Government clearly sees motorists simply as a cash cow."
Let's ignore for a moment that if the Lib Dems had their way we'd still be travelling round in oxcarts and that the councils Mr Carmichael's party controls are among the most deranged and vindictive of the anti-car warriors.
Ever since the Tories stripped the police of responsibility for parking enforcement and handed it over to local authorities, the number of tickets issued has gone through the sunroof.
This was done in the name of "decriminalising" minor parking offences. Decriminalisation? It certainly doesn't feel like it. If paedophiles were pursued with the same ruthlessness as drivers who pull up on a double-yellow for 30 seconds, there wouldn't be a child-sex offender left on the streets.
Councils have recruited ruthless private firms to issue penalty notices and collect the cash by the vanload.
Dubious methods, deception and downright illegality are the order of the day.
One in five tickets has to be cancelled because of "irregularities" by traffic wardens ? in other words, handing out tickets which should never have been issued in the first place and hoping that the mug motorist won't have the time or inclination to appeal.
Is it any wonder, when wardens are offered incentives from flat-screen televisions to foreign holidays to ticket every car in Christendom?
We'd be outraged if we thought the police were being bribed to frame certain types of criminals (although most of us wouldn't object to the odd iPod or plasma TV if we thought it might persuade the Old Bill to take burglary and car theft seriously).
Yet councils have colluded in this semi-criminal enterprise. As long as the Town Hall gets a fat slice, they'll turn a blind eye to the widespread abuse. They will also make parking restrictions as arcane and perverse as possible to maximise revenues.
No two yellow-lines are ever the same. The time of day you can park, the side of the road you can park: it changes from week to week, with the expressed intention of tricking motorists. It is entrapment, pure and simple. And if these weren't crimes of limited liability, a court would throw them out.
Red routes, temporary parking bays, cameras. As soon as we get behind the wheel, we put ourselves on offer. And the penalties bear no relation to the so-called "crime".
Fines of £60 are commonplace for infringements which cause absolutely no obstruction to anyone, merely for stopping in a "restricted" area drawn up on a whim by a bored council official with a box of crayons, simply to justify his miserable existence.
Cowboy clampers demand up to £350 ? more than a week's take-home pay for many people ? to release confiscated (ie stolen) cars.
And, of course, none of this money goes towards mending the roads or making journeys any easier. It's frittered away on humps, chicanes, little red bricks, barriers and bare-metal road-width "restrictors" designed to rip the paintwork and wing-mirrors off anything wider than a bubble-car.
Most of it goes on wages. Town Hall traffic departments are stuffed with scruffy cycling enthusiasts, sexual inadequates, otherwise unemployable polytechnic graduates and certifiable, tree-hugging "environmentalists".
Their policies are dictated by misanthropic megalomaniacs such as Red Ken and madwomen who believe everything they read in The Guardian.
They have turned the streets of Britain into a giant crazy golf course, specifically designed to milk motorists and cause the maximum possible inconvenience to people trying to go about their lawful daily business.
Some people complain that all this is "un-British". Sorry to shatter your illusions, but this is very British indeed. Very New Labour British. As British as shopping your neighbours for breaking the hosepipe ban and as British as Eastbourne Council fining shopkeepers £75 if a seagull tears open their rubbish bags.
It wouldn't occur to the council to provide more dustbins. Punishment is always the weapon of first resort. It's about showing us who's boss.
Since the collapse of socialism, all those who once thought they could rule us through nationalisation and trades union bullying have decamped into local government, the health service, "safety camera partnerships" and dozens of other agencies which they manipulate to control our lives by other means.
We now live in a punishment culture, established to feed the voracious appetite of politicians and public sector employees for power and privilege.
"The Government clearly sees motorists simply as a cash cow."
Wrong. This Government sees everyone as a cash cow.
Oi, you can't park there.

[miltiades]

It is infuriating that the government allows these illegal practices to take place and it is absurd that in the UK in the 21st century we have legal high way robbers stealing money from the motorists .
With 3 vans on the road my average annual extortion payments amounts to over £10,000 , we operate in central London mostly because that is where business is . It is a nightmare , if the camera doesn't get you the bastard traffic wardens do.
The worst type of illegal practice is when you park in a loading bay that clearly states "loading and unloading 20 minutes " Not so according to the thick traffic warden who issues a parking ticket the minute he / she spots your vehicle.
I used to challenge parking tickets but regretfully time does not allow me to do so so we just pay up.
The extortionist have a method of knowing that a company will always end up paying and I believe that sign written vans are always targeted.

[miltiades]

Miltiades, do you not have anything better to do but whinge about traffic wardens?

Yes I do , I'm waiting for you to overstep the mark and then I shall pounce !
ps. You are not a traffic warden are you , or married to one ?

[Paphitis]

Miltiades, do you not have anything better to do but whinge about traffic wardens?

Yes I do , I'm waiting for you to overstep the mark and then I shall pounce !
ps. You are not a traffic warden are you , or married to one ?

You will not have to wait too long!

I am always all too willing to overstep the mark, and it will have to take someone a bit better than you to stop me.

[miltiades]

Miltiades, do you not have anything better to do but whinge about traffic wardens?

Yes I do , I'm waiting for you to overstep the mark and then I shall pounce !
ps. You are not a traffic warden are you , or married to one ?

You will not have to wait too long!

I am always all too willing to overstep the mark, and it will have to take someone a bit better than you to stop me.

Better in what Paphitis ?
At least I have knocked you out a few times or dont you remember your silly posts on war !!! And calling me a traitor !!!
I told you before and I tell you again . Cyprus needs a hell of a lot more Miltiadeses , just one Paphitis though is plentifull.