I doubt if Westminster Council is capable of feeling shame, so I name it. A couple of weeks ago in the early afternoon I waited on a single yellow line in Wardour Street for about 10 minutes while my passenger did some errand, then left the keys with him while I nipped round the corner, 2 minutes at most, to deliver a text to a publisher for my wife. The car was occupied at all times with the key in it. No obstruction was caused. No parking attendant spoke to either of us or stood nearby looking threatening.
Today I received by post a PCN including a moody colour photo of the car's rear number plate, of such good quality that filth is clearly visible on the bumper and rear door. It says that 'The alleged contravention was observed by camera operator number ******** '.
Does waiting while deliveries are made constitute parking? And isn't a PCN supposed to be illegal unless stuck on the car or handed to the driver at the time?
Apart from oaths and insults, does anyone have a suggestion as to how my letter of refusal should be phrased?
Please don't tell me I was blocking a street and ought to pay up. It may make me cry.
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This sounds comparable to the recent Red Route appeal by TFL about remote PCNs that they (thankfully) lost. IIRC the PCN has to be placed on vehicle or given to driver to be valid under the 1991 Road Traffic Act. I'm sure HJ will have updated his FAQs.
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If I remember rightly, when I looked up my camera Red Route PCN problem I think I found an act which allowed Tfl to legally use only camera evidence. Certainly I was convinced enough (as were a good few on here) that the easiest course was to pay up and forget about it.
Didn't work though - only 50% succesful. I paid up but didn't forget.
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Ha! Not the old "my passenger is running an errand so I parked in Wardour Street" thing again. Of all the filthy (yet surprisingly interesting) activities that occur in Soho, they focus on Lud and his humble automobile.
Check the parking marking, including notices
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We all had the opportunity to object, forcefully if necessary, to the cameras now probing every part of our lives. We didn't. Live with it.
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">We all had the opportunity to object,<"
When was that?
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It is all done by computer which recognizes objects and what they are doing and spots illegal or suspicious acts, they don't have people sat their watching, although they may verify them visually as they are sent.
Maybe you should address your letter, " www.nice.com "?
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We all had the opportunity to object forcefully if necessary to the cameras now probing every part of our lives. We didn't.
Oh, really. When?
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When your Town/City/County first started flitring with the things, they didn't appear overnight. Another example of disengagement/apathy from local affairs.
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So when was that then Pug? CCTV has been around in various forms decades, but it's the misuse that i object to.
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I think the (to use a very current phrase) was around 1997 when town centre schemes started to be paid for by the Home Office, all the schemes required planning permission, HMG persuaded us that we needed them to be safe in the town centres. Our local towns (both equidistant from where we live) both have them, both have been enhanced in recent years, the Local Authority also farms out re-deployable cameras to target problems. They are everywhere now. Nobody objected at the time.....too late guys.
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>I think the [...] (to use a very current phrase)
Tipping point?
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You're missing the point Pug, I don't think people objected in the late 1990s because most people thought that the CCTVs used in town centres were being used to stop violent crime and thievery. It's the misuse I object to. The British are subject to the highest level of surveillence in the world. Why? Because we put up with it, we are sheep. I've tried dealing with local councils on several issues, the level of incompetence is frightening as is the unwillingness to deal with difficult issues. Unfortunately, I have to earn a shekel or two so there is insufficient time to deal with the councils effectively. And some of them are my clients, so one has to tread carefully.
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>> >> We all had the opportunity to object forcefully if necessary to >> >> the cameras now probing every part of our lives. We didn't.
>> Oh, really. When?
When your Town/City/County first started flitring with the things they didn't appear overnight. Another example of disengagement/apathy from local affairs.
What?? How the devil does *that* give me a chance to object to cameras? Vote for the "no cameras" candidate? I don't think so. Unless you can come up with a reasonable explanation of how it would have been possible for the general population to object to these things, then I shall have to conclude that the statements "We all had the opportunity to object..." and "When your Town/City/County first started flitring with the things..." are complete codswallop. Thank you.
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There is a chap in North Yorkshire, Bedale I think, who taked great delight in embarrassing local authorities and parking enforcement companies. He knows the law inside out about exactly where and how enforcement signs are legally obliged to be displayed. If he spots an inconsistency he parks there and then defends the ticket. So far he has not lost. He should hire out as a consultant. I wonder if he needs an agent? Always worth checking for improper signage etc. Concrete.
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Writing to your MP would probably have been a good start. But if we really cared about it a vigilante group would have solved the problem by now...
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Writing to your MP would probably have been a good start.
Effect, on a scale of 0 (ineffective) to 10 (effective) ? A real-world round figure of somewhat less than one springs to mind.
But if we really cared about it a vigilante group would have solved the problem by now...
By walking around in the exercise yard and whispering to each other..... should the odd heroic maverick appear (how many have there been?) how long would they last, I wonder...
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The "if you don't do anything wrong, you've got nothing to worry about" brigade will start getting caught as well soon.
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Seems to me this is a step too far. If there's a meter person telling you to move along you will. But dumping on you from a secret camera is simple daylight robbery. There were no notices that I saw warning that parking 'infringements' would be responded to in this way.
They have already made it almost impossible to get in or out of Soho. Why? The congestion now is much worse with half the traffic volume of pre-Livingstone times. All over the West End streets are closed off for 'repairs' and new, counterintuitive one-way systems being imposed. Not to mention the deliberate jimmying of traffic lights.
Is the purpose of all this to make life safer or easier or more ecologically, er, sound? Seems to me the idea is to torture everyone and pick their pockets.
And who are these camera operators? Evil sneaks working for private companies.
This system needs its back broken.
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">This system needs its back broken.<"
So, Lud, are you available for a little light revolutioneering over the week-end? But not if it's raining of course.
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Tee hee Micky.
Getting a bit long in the tooth for true scallywagging personally.
What have you got in mind?
One of my dreams is torching matchwood sight barriers at roundabouts in Surrey.
Wouldn't actually do it of course. Hate arson actually.
But I'll morally defend any robust soul who does it. There's a difference after all between someone's house and a deliberate stupid obstruction to the safe and fluid progress of traffic in the busy home counties.
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Don't snigger - the french peasants had enough of their rulers a couple hundred years ago and revolted. I sniff the very early beginnings of something here now.
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I sniff the very early beginnings of something here now.
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I'll have a shilling bet with you that nothing of any significance will happen in our lifetimes.
Back to the original post - Lud parked there in contravention and got a ticket - so?
Is there some point that I have missed?
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I'll have a shilling bet with you ........
Crikey drbe, even I don't call them shillings any more!
--
L\'escargot.
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I call them shillings.
But I didn't 'park'. I don't think there was a contravention.
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>> But I didn't 'park'. I don't think there was a contravention.
It all depends upon the definition of "parking". You (Lud) seem to be saying that as I didn't turn off the engine; get out of the car; lock the car; walk away - then the vehicle has not been parked.
Using that logic, you could sit in the car all night long, with the engine running without a contravention ocurring.
Somehow, I just don't think so.
Define "parking" for me, please.
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You do indeed see vehicles stopped on all sorts of yellow lines obviously unloading - doors left open, that sort of thing - for considerable lengths of time. Because people aren't carrying big boxes it doesn't mean they don't have a perfectly valid reason to be there. There is discrimination against anything that looks like a car rather than commercial vehicle. Load of goddam cobblers.
In my opinion if a car is left unoccupied and unattended for more than a minute or two it is parked. If it is occupied or attended and can be moved at any moment on request, it is not parked but 'waiting' or 'unloading'. Seems obvious. Of course it puts people who can afford chauffeurs at an unfair advantage, but so what?
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Ah, what you could do in those days with a few shillings in your pocket: 'buz' ride into town, a few pints of Ansells with your mates and 'six of chips' on the way home!
Clk Sec
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Hi Lud, I got one of these PCN things about a year ago from the same council with a photo on it showing my number plate, although not crystal clear as it was a small photo. At first I thought that some one was driving about with the same number plate as me, what the hell where they up to? Anyway i contacted my local police station and explained the situation, and guess what, not in the slightest bit interested. Amazing dont you think. Anyway, after worring about it for a while, knowing that is was not me I got a powerfull mag glass on the photo, and they had one letter wrong, an O instead of the letter D. I phoned them at cost to me, and eventually convinced them they had the wrong number plate, and wrong person. Right sir, thanks for ringing, good-bye. Damn idiots.Cheers, Graham.
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