Lovely Traffic Wardens!

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Mon 1 Dec 2003 15:52
Lovely Traffic Wardens! - HF
Halleluyah.

Same thing happens every single day outside my son's school. Same woman arrives late every day, and it is her god-given right to park on the yellow zigzags, thereby also blocking in whichever car happens to be at the front of the queue. Until today, that is...

For the first time in almost a decade of me doing the school run, as if by magic a traffic warden appeared, and although the woman in question tried to scarper, the warden managed to get her details.

To give her her due, the warden also then waved on another car which decided to park in the same place, with a verbal warning rather than a ticket.

Don't like to gloat but - oh ok I do. :)
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Mon 1 Dec 2003 16:12
Lovely Traffic Wardens! - billy25
she must be new in the job! her bosses will probably sack her for having a "heart" if they find out!
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Mon 1 Dec 2003 16:19
Lovely Traffic Wardens! - Nsar
There's a bit of a honey on the front of tonight's Manchester Evening News - cue dodgy joke about taking down your particulars.....followed by moderator with delete button
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Mon 1 Dec 2003 17:38
Lovely Traffic Wardens! - smokie
I think that unless they actually stick a notice to your screen, then you have got away with it. Certainly happened to me some years back - I rather rudely drove off while traffic warden was typing car details into handheld thingy - I never heard another word from them.

(I was incensed - I'd arrived back at the meter with it showing less than 5 minutes late, albeit thinking I still had time to spare, and I accused the warden of lurking and other things - and he said that he'd started typing so he had to finish...For weeks afterwards I thought every police car I saw was going to stop me...)
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Mon 1 Dec 2003 19:26
Lovely Traffic Wardens! - Vin {P}
I believe the rule is that once they start to write, you're stuffed, and they have to finish the ticket.

V
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Mon 1 Dec 2003 19:55
Lovely Traffic Wardens! - Dynamic Dave
I think that unless they actually stick a notice to your
screen, then you have got away with it.


I think you're right Smokie. Some time ago I watched that Docu soap programme "The Clampers" and this subject cropped up. One of the wardens was forever trying to ticket someone who frequently parked on double yellows, but always managed to drive off before the ticket had finished being printed by the warden's hand held machine and being afixed to the windscreen. In the end the warden lay wait around the corner, filled in all the details and slapped the printed out ticket on the windscreen before the driver had chance to unlock the car door. Gotcha.
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Mon 1 Dec 2003 20:25
Lovely Traffic Wardens! - cockle {P}
A little off the topic, but not a lot, I promise.

A local school is on a main road and has now had the road narrowed to the width of a country lane outside the entrance with a Zebra crossing and zigzags, hence no-one can park outside the entrance without totally blocking the road. Nearby is a T junction with a slightly less main, one-way, road joining which carries quite a large volume of traffic. Since the narrowing was implemented outside the school people have taken to parking on both sides of the minor road right up to the junction therefore narrowing the road to a single lane instead of left and right turn lanes being able to operate. Result, absolute chaos.

My neighbour decided to complain to our local parking enforcers, we've been decrimmed so don't have wardens anymore, to see whether anything could be done. Apparently they went through all the usual excuses until he pointed out that all these cars are left unattended for about 15 minutes while the parents have a chat in the playground every morning and that he reckoned they could ticket about 30 cars in the 15 minutes.
The guy on the other end of the phone obviously did a quick calculation and worked out that about £1000 in fines for 15 minutes work for two or three attendants was a pretty good return.

Apparently the enforcers have swooped three times in the last fortnight, the parents now appear to be parking a little further away from the junction, allowing it to function as it should. The traffic now flows much easier and even the bus company is happy because the buses now run somewhere near their timetable instead of queuing.

Cockle
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