Just returned (safely thankfully) from a hospital appointment in Lewisham (Sarf Lundun for any of you norveners). Despite it being a general hospital the available parking area was about the size of a tennis court and was already full when we arived at about 09.15. No problem I thought, the place of my birth has many convenient side roads in which to park so I dropped Mrs V. off and went off to park with the kids. WHAT A NIGHTMARE! Cars, everywhere, no entry signs, one way streets, speed cameras, road humps, bus lane cameras, worst of all, street after street of residents only parking zones, temptingly devoid of all but a few vehicles. Not being a wanton lawbreaker though, I drove around for about 20 minutes searching for somewhere to park. In the end I found a recently vacated Pay & Display spot about half a mile from the hospital and paid my money. Whilst waiting for my wife what I then saw was a plague of parking attendants constantly combing the area obviously hoping to pick off anyone unfortunate enough to be 30 seconds late. We later went into the adjacent park and I watched as one of them noted my car down with about 20 mins of time left. Then another came and did the same thing. I then got in the car with my boys and waited. Sure enough, just before my time was up they both returned from different directions ready to write yet another ticket. You could see the disappointment as I drove off with about a minute left :(
Once upon a time this sort of thing only went on in inner London (and of course other town centres) but now it's like a creeping cancer just waiting to swallow us all up. At the rate they're going in Lewisham there'll be nowhere left to park soon and it'll become a ghost town. Where's all this going to stop?
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The inevitable result of paying law enforcement officers out of the fines they collect. Their aim is no longer to help you go about your business legally, but simply to trap you.
I really am beginning to get heartily sick of the apparatus of government in this country. It's almost enough to make me stand for election.
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Hope the appointment went well, v-man.
Best wishes.
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Yesterday, they turned up where I live.
I live on an urban clearway dual carriageway with 40mph speed limit.
The pavement is wide enough for a car to be parked on it, and another to drive around it without a problem, so a car doesn't really block the pavement any more than the large lime trees that come out of it every 60 yards.
The road is a few miles long, and in some parts the houses have drives, and in other parts, they are ex-local authority and only people who have made a drive themselves have one.
All the way down the road, there are lots of cars parked on the pavement, they have been doing so for decades.
Yesterday, two moped-mounted traffic wardens, two in a people carriere, and one on foot with a silly hat, came down the road, giving everyone a fixed penalty, I reckon they will have netted at least £2000.
Well, if they want to do this, but haven't enforced it for decades, they could have given some warning, Personally, I'd rather they didn't park there, but thats no need for the state to play Dick Turpin. Whats more, the council gardeners and meals on wheels etc.. park on the oavement, as do the Police.
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Have you noticed - there is always some form of exception for anyone involved in the machinery of government?
Second class citizens, we are.
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Almost imperceptibly and silently the UK is becoming more and more like a Communist run state with its citizens becoming ever more dependent on the machinery of government.
You may well smile - but think about just exactly what has happened over the past seven years in many areas of our lives.
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I remember I read somewhere that the primary mission of government was not to govern, but to perpetuate itself by any and all mean......
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"..as do the Police."
Perhaps a photo of a police vehicle so parked, to accompany the ticket, would help in mitigation?
Funnily enough, I got a ticket on my bike recently (!) having parked it on a small shaded area of roadway outside my bank that I (and others) have used for years. The ticket shows that I was there for five minutes, and I met the TW writing it out, but of course she was not inclined to change her mind (I've started so I'll finish!) and I had to suppress my desire to strangle her on the spot, as it might have been counter-productive...
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I've been breaking the law for years, so I propose to continue breaking it.
::extinguishes flame/::
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Speaking of exceptions.
This week in the Derby Evening Telegraph, story about a copper who was caught doing 37 in a 30 while already on 9 points.He got let off by the judge and the excuse was,wait for it, he was desperate to get home for a bath.
Unbelievable.
So he now has 12 points, with no loss of driving privelidges.
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If you hadn't been driving somethig as big as a Volvo, you might have been able to find a parking space!
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SWMBO works at a large hospital, and even when working an early shift, has to arrive even earlier to find somewhere to park.
After much complaining by staff, patients, and visitors, a fairly large ajoining field was recently turned in to a nicely tarmaced car park with (I guess) 150 extra spaces.
The odd thing is that the hospital grounds still look like a bomb site, with:
> Cars abandoned hither and thither, double yellows and ambulance only areas being frequently ignored.
> Annoyed visitors having run-ins with staff for parking in their car park because it was the only one to have an empty spot for half a nano second.
> Annoyed staff because if they arrive 'on time' for an afternoon shift, they can forget being able to park.
> More annoyed staff because if there is an empty visitor slot, they have to pay to use it, despite already having to pay for a staff car park permit.
Where on earth have all these extra cars come from?!
I can only assume that as soon as the new car park was built, previous public transport and cycle users took to driving to work!
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I think a lot of this is to do with the 'privatisation' of parking enforcement. Wheelclampers are the absolute worst, of course.
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The hospitals in my area have introduced an exclusion zone so that staff who live within a mile of their workplace cannot park at the hospitals.
There are exclusions if they have to travel as part of their work or are registered disabled.
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Ah but I wasn't driving a Volvo Madux - I was driving a very small hatchback so there!
Patently - no major drama (apart from the journey!) thanks all the same.
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ps I don't even own a Volvo!
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>>the future's looking bleak.
Think you should drop in on the optician's if you've only just realised this... ;)
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Funnily enough I was going to Mapmaker but there was nowhere to park :)
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I can't think why I would assume "Volvoman" had a Volvo. PLease forgive me.
Please don't assume I don't have one either.
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I'll try not to assume you're mad if you like too ;)
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Thankyou for your reply, Volvoman. While you're there please could you advise me on:
1992-1998 - Would FWD 850/V70 be preferable to the cheaper RWD 940 series?
How do I stop the luggage lids on 1995 945 squeaking under acceleration?
Service manual recommends 25% antifreeze but the US website says 30% - What do you think?
Where can I buy some cartoon fish to stick in the back windows?
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Well I'd like to be able to advise but there's a technical forum for all of that stuff - suggest you ask there.
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You don't really know anything about Volvos, do you?
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You don't really know anything about Volvos, do you?
I know nothing about tents. Who cares?
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Madux - Well when I said I don't even own a Volvo, what I didn't say was that I'd never owned one. Also, the fact that I owned one until a few months ago doesn't necessarily make me an expert and even if it did I wouldn't be inclined to hijack a thread about parking problems in Lewisham in order to discuss the finer points of the Volvo owning experience.
Patently - LOL!
It's good 'ere ain't it :)
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Same thing happened to me at the Royal Brompton hospital...middle of london for all you southerners...I had had a major op and my good lady was picking me up and the jobsworth car park attendant refused to let her wait while the porter wheeled me out! My good lady is made of stern stuff and refused to budge 'til I was in the car. Can't praise the medical staff there enough though!
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In my locality there are no traffic wardens -- haven't seen them for months and months. Curiously, apart from the odd thoughtless and selfish idiot parking illegally in a dangerous place, and those who abuse parking bays for the disabled, I can't say that I've noticed much difference in the pattern of parking or its impact on traffic flows. Come to think of it, the idiots and abusers did the same thing when traffic wardens were about. Bears thinking about, doesn't it?
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From an economic point of view you need to weigh the cost of enforcement of regulations against the benefit obtained.
Traffic Wardens and Parking Attendants must have a negative effect overall as their pay and the fines extracted from "customers" simply transfer resources from the productive part of the economy to the non-productive.
Their labour could be producing goods and the fines would otherwise be spent by "customers" on goods and services which would create manufacturing or services employment and the associated taxes and VAT which would pay for better public services.
At the present rate of enforcement expansion half the population will be working and the other half walking/sitting alongside issuing fines for every petty misdemenour.
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