Bedford Driving Lessons » Laughable

Crazy council paints double yellow lines of less than half a metre!

admin — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 21:18:50 +0000

A council has painted what is believed to be Britain’s shortest ever set of double yellow lines – measuring just 17 inches. The lines have been daubed on the gap between a new permit parking area for residents and a two hour waiting zone in Stafford Street, Norwich, Norfolk. James Little, 56, who is landlord of the Alexandra Tavern in the street, said he was shocked to see the lines had appeared opposite his pub last week. He said: ‘I thought the country was skint – but it appears that people can still spend money on daft things like this. ‘There just doesn’t seem any point in having such short lines. You would have to park a toy car on there to get a ticket. ‘It has caused a bit of mirth in the pub. Everyone thinks it is hilarious and we are looking forward to seeing if a traffic warden comes down here to monitor it.’ More

See also:

Police park illegally to catch other motorists!

admin — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 21:45:21 +0000

Motorists have slammed a policeman who illegally parked a patrol car so he could annoy other drivers for poor parking. The police driver ignored yellow ‘keep clear’ warnings and zig-zag lines outside a school and left the vehicle halfway on a pavement. Then he patrolled outside Thorpe Hesley Junior School at Thorpe Hesley, near Rotherham, to ensure parents were properly parked as they dropped off youngsters. The badly parked police car was photographed and the driver has been carpeted by senior officers at South Yorkshire Police. Parent Kevin Leach, 32 said: “The policeman was marching up and down, strutting his authority in an attempt to ensure the rules of the law were being followed by parking motorists. “But he contradicted himself by parking directly in a keep clear zone. You can see on the picture the passing car actually moving over the centre line as a result of this. More and pictures

See also:

Council waste more money on ‘daft’ sign!

admin — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 20:56:48 +0000

It is, perhaps, as pointless a sign as one could find. For reasons best known to itself, a London council has hammered in a sign urging motorists to “keep off the grass” on a scrubby bit of verge no bigger than a bath towel. Merton, a Labour-controlled authority in the south west of the capital, declined to say how much it had spent on trying to protect this minute patch of green. The council also declined to say which officer had take the decision to send a workman – or team of workmen – to hammer in the sign. “The sign was put up to remind motorists that it is illegal to park on the footway, and is designed to deter indiscriminate parking,” a spokesman said. More

See also:

Police order drunk motorist to drive to station for breath test!

admin — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 20:39:03 +0000

A motorist was pulled over by the police for drink-driving – and then told to drive himself to the station for a breath test. Jon Herron, 33, went to the pub for a couple of pints after work and was stopped in his Land Rover on his way home, a court heard yesterday. But police officers had run out of the disposable straws used in breathalysers, and so were unable to test him by the roadside. Instead they asked him to continue slowly to the police station as they followed behind. The route took him over three junctions, including two roundabouts. When Herron, a marine engineer, was tested at the station in Lymington, Hampshire, his blood-alcohol reading was 105, which is 25 over the legal limit, Southampton Magistrates’ Court heard. More

See also:

DVLA want back the cheeky number plate they sold!

admin — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 21:21:51 +0000

A motorist who bought the cheeky number plate ‘BO11 LUX’ for his new car has been ordered by the DVLA to remove it – even though he bought it from their website. Alan Clarke, 49, from Chesterfield, bought the plate for £399 from the official site to put on his new black Range Rover and says it left family, friends and other motorists in stitches when they spotted it. But within six weeks, he received a stern letter from the DVLA telling him the plate was ‘causing offence’ and ordering him to remove it from his vehicle. More

See also:

Drivers pay £62 million last year to renew photo licence!

admin — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 21:13:58 +0000

The DVLA has been accused of taxation by ‘stealth’ after new figures show that British motorists paid £62 million last year to renew and replace their driving licences. Drivers have to pay £20 to renew their credit-card-size licences every ten years to ensure that the photograph is up-to-date, netting the DVLA £42 million in the past year, according to figures obtained from a Freedom of Information request. A further £20 million was spent replacing lost or stolen licences at £56 a time. Hugh Bladon, spokesman for the Association of British Drivers, said last night: ‘It is a form of a stealth tax, another way of extracting more money out of the pockets of the motorist.’ More

See also:

Parked car moved for road work then ticketed!

admin — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 17:33:09 +0000

We’ve all experienced the age-old problem of forgetting where we’ve parked. But the driver of this Audi would have had some difficulty working out how his vehicle ended up on the other side of the road. These pictures, taken by a stunned onlooker, show a car removal truck moving the illegally parked motor into a different parking spot in Camden, North London. The Audi A4 was parked in a restricted area on the residential street where council contractors were due to undertake tree pruning work. But instead of towing it away, the removal truck lifted the car into the air and placed it into an empty parking bay on the opposite side of the road. Even though it was legally parked, a warden then slapped a parking ticket on the £35,000 vehicle. But the owner still avoided the huge expense of having his vehicle removed and impounded. More

See also:

Warden slaps ticket on mobility scooter!

admin — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 20:54:48 +0000

A disabled man, who stopped in at his pensioner’s club for breakfast, leaving his mobility scooter outside – returned to find it slapped with a £70 parking fine. Keith Chapman, 67, left his scooter parked up against a wall outside his local community centre while he chatted with friends in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire. He returned to find a warden had stuck a £70 ticket on the handlebars claiming it was parked illegally. Mr Chapman, who was disabled in a motorbike accident 50 years ago, said he was in ‘hysterics’ when he spotted the fine. East Hertfordshire District Council has apologised and revoked the fine, claiming the warden involved was ‘confused’. Mr Chapman said: ‘I called in for breakfast and because there was no room in the car park I left it up against the wall. ‘Later on people came in and said a traffic warden had put a parking ticket on the scooter. I thought they were winding me up. More

See also:

Council to refund £1M parking fines after using wrong camera!

admin — Fri, 06 May 2011 21:58:26 +0000

Motorists could be in line for a £1million refund of parking fines after council bosses used the ‘wrong sort of camera’. The CCTV Smart car cameras had not been declared an ‘approved device’ by the Department of Transport. As a result thousands of tickets issued by Richmond Council, in south London, could be ruled invalid. The surveillance cars have since been taken off the streets and Lord True, leader of Richmond Council, has now indicated that all affected drivers could be due refunds. He promised a full investigation after it was claimed cameras on the council’s two CCTV cars were not correctly certified and fines had been issued illegally since 2009. Last year alone, the council issued 12,305 tickets, raising more than £573,000. A council spokesman said: ‘We are taking advice and are considering the question [of refunding motorists].’ More

See also:

39 penalty points and still driving!

admin — Thu, 05 May 2011 22:17:00 +0000

A Swindon motorist has 39 penalty points on his or her licence – the most in Great Britain – but not been banned. A Freedom of Information request to the DVLA showed 638 drivers in Bristol, Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset and Gloucestershire have 12 or more points. Twelve points usually means a temporary ban for a driver unless they can prove it would cause exceptional hardship. A court decides if a driver is banned and the Magistrates’ Association agreed the Swindon case needs investigating. The DVLA’s response to the Freedom of Information (FOI), from BBC West, did not say which offences the penalty points related to and gave no further information about the driver from Swindon. It explained that although it compiles the figures on court cases involving driving offences it has no influence on verdicts. More

See also:

Disabled guy reattaching false leg given parking ticket!

admin — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 21:10:22 +0000

A disabled man says he was given a parking ticket after he pulled his car over into a loading bay because his false leg had fallen off. Lee Scarrott received the £70 fine after he made an emergency stop in the space in Nottingham city centre as he tried to find a missing piece of his prosthetic limb. The 47-year-old, who lost his right leg in a motorbike accident in 2007, appealed against the ticket and was initially turned down by Nottingham City Council, but the authority eventually dropped the charge. Mr Scarrott, from Nottingham, told the Nottingham Post he drove his specially adapted car into the city centre on December 3 last year and parked legally in a disabled bay in St Peter’s Gate before carrying out some errands. He said that, on his way back to the car, the suction pin which keeps his prosthetic limb attached to his body began to come loose and it was only as he drove away that he realised. After driving a short distance, his false leg fell off and he pulled over into a loading bay in Victoria Street. More

See also:

Workmen hash up double yellow line painting!

admin — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 22:33:46 +0000

Furious traders at first thought they had been vandalised when they saw the scruffy, crooked yellow lines and white, mis-shapen parking bays on the historic cobbles of their town. Some car-owners even reported their vehicles being sprayed with white and yellow paint when council workers carried out the two-day botch-job in Yarm, Teesside this week. It has caused chaos among the heavily-used parking bays as vans and family cars are unable to fit in the spaces which have been made too small. The affluent area is frequented by footballers and businessmen and is the local shopping area of former England manager Steve McClaren, who lives nearby. The debacle has driven the council to apologise and announce that they will be replaced this weekend. High street trader Kaye Allan said: ‘People are honestly just stunned. Some of the lines are thin, while others are really fat and uneven. It is absolutely appalling. ‘I really didn’t believe they were from the council – I thought it was a practical joke. We have become the laughing stock of the country and it is ruining our beautiful cobbles. It is awful.’ Peter Bell, of designer clothes shop The House, said: ‘We became very suspicious when we realised he wasn’t actually very good at spraying and was marking bays in the wrong directions and the wrong sizes. More

See also:

Motorist clamped after 30 seconds!

admin — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 21:07:34 +0000

The incident happened outside Exeter’s Central Station, which has become notorious for overzealous clampers. Network Rail had recently given assurances that the parking firm Premier Parking Solutions would not affix clamps or issue tickets to any car parked at the station for less than five minutes. Peter Webber, 48, a teacher, said his car was clamped about 30 seconds after he got out and went into the station to get change to feed the parking machine. More

See also:

Pothole claimant gets 200 page rejection letter!

admin — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 21:03:27 +0000

When Terry Rothery filed a £40 claim to his council for pothole damage to his car, he wasn’t really expecting much of a response. The reply he got, however, turned out to be rather overwhelming. For while council bureaucrats did, as expected, refuse to compensate the retired magazine executive, they also felt the need to send him a 200-page letter explaining their decision. Over-officious highways bosses even included their entire 186-page road maintenance strategy along with a lengthy explanation letter. Mr Rothery, 65, filed the claim in protest at the council’s road maintenance after he hit a massive pothole as he was driving his blue BMW along a road at night near to his home in Billericay, Essex. The father of four and grandfather said: ‘The rejection letter was a load of gobbledygook, with clauses and subclauses and explanations which basically said they could not be held responsible. ‘Why they had to send me the complete highway maintenance strategy, I have no idea. ‘It just needed the couple of pages within that document that are relevant – not the complete works.’ Mr Rothery has since been left frustrated in his attempts to speak to council officials, who he says have not been answering their phones. More

See also:

EU green tax to add 1.5p to litre of fuel!

admin — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 22:00:16 +0000

Brussels bureaucrats are cooking up a new ‘green’ fuel tax – and its impact will hit owners of diesel cars hard. Owners of petrol engined cars will also be hit, though not as much. UK motorists are already being clobbered by the soaring price of fuel. MORE fuel pain could be en route. The tax proposed would see extra cash charged for diesel because the tax would be based on a fuel’s energy content rather than its volume. Diesel contains more energy – more carbon – than petrol. Which is why they’re often more economical as well as more powerful. But the EU argues that without a level ‘energy’ playing field, diesel vehicles (and their owners) are effectively being subsidised. Unfair, they cry. Diesel cars are hugely popular, not just for their efficiency but also for their ‘green’ credentials. New diesel cars in the UK outsell petrol cars by some margin. Diesel cars generally emit considerably fewer carbon emissions. However, the flip side of the coin is that diesel cars also emit more smaller polluting particles, which can damage air quality. More

See also:

Devious yellow box junction rakes in £1M!

admin — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 21:33:47 +0000

Motorists have been hit with more than £1million in penalty fines at just one road junction – even though traffic bosses privately admit the road markings on it are somewhat deceptive. More than 9,000 drivers were fined £120 each after being photographed entering the box junction, but not being able to drive out of it before the traffic lights changed. Under the Highway Code, motorists must not enter the box until the exit road or lane in front is clear. But the extended yellow criss-cross lines at the junction in South London mean drivers taking one of the left turns are getting stuck in the box junction. Cameras monitoring the junction have caught out dozens each day because of its frequent traffic jams. A total of 9,098 fines were handed out to motorists unable to leave the box junction on the A3 in Clapham, South-West London, since February last year. More

See also:

Bailiffs target 500,000 drivers a year over council parking fines!

admin — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 22:23:22 +0000

Town halls are setting bailiffs on to nearly 500,000 drivers every year over parking fine disputes. Local councils are involved in more than a third of the 17million cases handled by the £3billion-a-year debt recovery industry. The employment of bailiff firms over minor parking infringements mean drivers risk having their cars impounded over trivial and often disputed sums. Recently one firm tried to seize a pensioner’s mobility scooter when she failed to pay a parking fine as she was in hospital. In another case a woman’s car was impounded and sold after she refused to pay a fine for overstaying in a council car park by three minutes. The figures were gathered by the Big Brother Watch campaign group, which put freedom of information requests to more than 300 councils. More

See also:

Council paints double yellows in tree filled narrow parking space!

admin — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 20:25:06 +0000

For the council officials, it made perfect sense to paint a 3ft yellow line next to a tree – even though it is nigh on impossible to park there. But for the inhabitants of Brighton that logic would appear more akin to that displayed in Alice in Wonderland. Pedantic and silly are just two of the responses given by residents to their local paper The Brighton Argus when it asked ‘Are these Sussex’s most silly double yellows?’ That the tree – located in Shaftesbury Place – is there in the first place should be warning enough that it is not possible to park there. But the council is unrepentant about its decision and declared that it is important to make it clear to all and sundry where one can or cannot park. Their concern was that if the yellow lines were not painted then drivers would attempt to park in the tiny space knowing it would be legal. And that could lead to them contesting parking tickets. A council spokesman said that the lines were painted to stop cars jutting out and drivers contesting parking tickets Or, if there is an accident, perhaps caused if a vehicle is jutting out, then the council could be deemed culpable. Either option would prove costly. So to stop that, they have painted the double yellow lines. A spokesman for the Brighton and Hove City Council told MailOnline: ‘There was a little bit of overkill in the Argus – they went out to interview people. ‘If you look at the picture it does look a bit silly, but when you know the reasons behind it, it’s not so silly. More

See also:

Drivers could get back £60m through unfair parking ticket appeals!

admin — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 23:17:46 +0000

Drivers lost almost £60million last year by failing to appeal against unfair parking tickets, according to a survey. In 2010, around 5 per cent of motorists in the UK received a parking ticket where they had grounds for appeal, paying out an estimated £58.5million, the poll by car insurer LV found. Of these, only 22 per cent bothered to contest the ticket but of those who did, 88 per cent were successful in their claim. More than half (53 per cent) who chose not to appeal said they assumed they would lose, while 8 per cent did not know how to initiate a claim. The poll of 2,003 adults, including 1,728 drivers, showed that the majority of unfair parking fines are issued in areas were parking signage is unclear. A total of 2 per cent of drivers said parking attendants had fabricated evidence to support the issuing of a ticket. More

See also:

Driver wins 30 hour stand-off with parking warden!

admin — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 22:21:10 +0000

A terrified young care worker barricaded herself inside her car for 30 hours after the vehicle was clamped by an over-zealous warden – despite displaying a valid parking permit. Jessica Davey, 22, became embroiled in a marathon stand-off with a clamper after her Renault Clio was targeted outside her home. Determined nursing home carer Jessica refused to pay a £110 release fee – claiming a parking permit was on her car dashboard – and locked herself away in the vehicle. She refused to leave the driving seat of her cramped car for fear it would be towed away and sparked an incredible 30-hour stand-off. Jessica’s worried pleas for help to the police were ignored and her boyfriend Simon Baker, 23, was even arrested as he tried to free the chained vehicle. Eventually, after more than one full day in her car, Jessica won out after managing to free the clamp wheel herself – but she is fuming about her ordeal. She said yesterday: ‘I couldn’t afford to pay him and I didn’t see why I should so I decided to stay with my car until he took it off so he couldn’t tow it away. More

See also:

Council contractors resurface around parked car!

admin — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 22:56:53 +0000

Council contractors have been branded ‘unbelievable’after asphalting around a parked car. Workmen were due to resurface the Market Street car park in Whitworth last week. But when the arrived they found one driver had ignored signs telling people not to park there. But undeterred they carried on the with the job anyway – and left the patch around the Ford Focus uncovered. Glynn Normoyle was in Whitworth Post Office directly opposite when the work was being carried out. He said: “When I realised they were resurfacing around the parked car, I couldn’t believe it. “The workmen spent a long time on the phone when they first arrived – I suppose they were trying to find out who the car belonged to and what they should do next.” A sign warning drivers not to park went up at 8am on Monday February 14, with workmen arriving two days later. Whitworth mayor, Coun David Chorlton, who owns Market Street plumbing and bathroom business UBS, said: “A few people told me about it when they came in the shop. “They found it highly amusing and I thought they were winding me up, so I went to have a look. More

See also:

Drivers could be rewarded for keeping to speed limits say Labour!

admin — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 18:35:16 +0000

Maria Eagle, the new shadow transport secretary, wants to use the country’s network of average speed cameras to provide incentives for motorists to observe the law. Labour hopes the policy will revive its reputation among drivers who accused the party of “waging war on the motorist” while in Government. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Ms Eagle said she was preparing a radical overhaul of the party’s motoring strategy as Labour moves for the support of what Ed Miliband described as the “squeezed middle”. She made clear that the party was not planning to resurrect unpopular proposals for pay as you drive charging, which triggered a backlash among drivers with 1.8 million people signing a Downing Street petition opposing the idea. “By the end I think there was a perception among motorists that we were not their friends,” she said. “The perception was that we were about soaking them for money. “It was felt that cameras were about catching them on the hop and fining them, money raising arrangement rather than a road safety arrangement.” Average – or “time over distance” – cameras record the speed of all cars on a prolonged stretch of road. They are commonly used around roadworks. Ms Eagle, believes that they could be used to promote road safety in a more positive manner. More

See also:

Lady gets fined after snow covers parking ticket!

admin — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 22:25:08 +0000

MOTORIST Sue Cooke is furious a penalty notice was slapped on her windscreen, because a warden said he wasn’t allowed to scrape away snow to see the valid parking ticket underneath. The sales assistant had parked on a car park in the centre of Leek during Wednesday’s blizzards to avoid causing a traffic hazard on side streets. But she was given a ticket by a warden employed by Staffordshire Moorlands District Council; even though her pay and display ticket still had two hours 10 minutes on it. She is doubly angry the warden was able to prise the frozen windscreen wiper from her car to put the ticket on, but was not able to dust the snow off the window. The mother-of-two will now have to go through the appeals procedure against the £50 penalty – at a cost to the council taxpayer. Traders now say they fear over-zealous parking wardens will deter customers from visiting Leek in the run-up to Christmas. Mrs Cooke, who works at WH Smith in Derby Street, Leek, confronted the warden later in the day, and he claimed he could not clear the snow in case he was accused of scratching her car. The 55-year-old grandmother-of-two, of Fernwood Drive , Leek, said: “I was absolutely livid. He said he was not able to touch the car, but he was able to lift the frozen cold windscreen wiper, which must have been absolutely stuck solid. “There was more of a chance damaging the car doing that, than wiping away snow. I showed him the ticket and he said he had not been able to see it because of the snow. “There was an absolute blizzard that day. I bet I was not the only one to have got a ticket and I hope everyone else also appeals.” Other motorists, who were unable to move their cars from the town’s High Street car park during heavy snow were also fined. Vice chairman of Leek Chamber of Trade Marc Briand, who is the co-owner of Colloco, said the fine was ‘outrageous’ given the atrocious weather conditions on Wednesday. He said: “It shows the appetite is for booking cars, rather than freeing up parking spaces and keeping the traffic moving.” More

See also:

Police now asking motorist to spy on each other!

admin — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 20:38:44 +0000

Police are asking motorists to spy on each other for examples of poor driving in an alarming new extension of the ‘Big Brother’ state. Drivers are told to be on the look out for inconsiderate driving or anybody making ‘excessive noise’ with their car. Detailed reports – which critics warn could easily be malicious accusations against neighbours – are submitted to the police, who log extensive details on a huge computer database. The details are also checked against DVLA databases and the Police National Computer. Anybody who is reported twice in 12 months faces police action – despite never being caught breaking the law. Officers say they can be considered ‘repeat offenders’. The action could involve a warning letter or even a knock on the door from a police officer. The force that is piloting the scheme, Sussex, has already received 20,488 reports. They are made online – with the accused driver never knowing who is responsible. Freedom of Information requests reveal 2,695 drivers have received ‘letters of advice following reports of their driving’. A further 1,047 drivers have had ‘sanctions imposed on them’. This happens when the reports lead to police discovering offences such as an out-of-date tax disc. Police say it protects the public against dangerous drivers. Critics have likened the scheme to the East German Stasi – which More

See also:

59 sets of traffic lights at roundabout gives motorists headaches!

admin — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:49:50 +0000

And Southampton Council, Hants, has agreed to install more lights at the citys Millbrook roundabout to help traffic flow to a newly-built rubbish dump nearby. Thirty sets of lights were installed two years using more than £2.5 million pounds of taxpayers money and since then the number has nearly doubled. The busy roundabout beneath the Millbrook flyover takes motorists from the M27 motorway to the M271 into Southampton. In addition motorists must also cope with ten toucan crossings at the roundabout’s five approaches and a maze of cycle lanes. The record-breaking lights were installed by Southampton Transport chiefs after a three-week consultation period with local businesses, motorists and residents. The heavily-industrialised surrounding area is home to a number of vehicle dealerships, including Volvo and fast food chains including KFC on the Millbrook Trading Estate. The other side of the roundabout, which also links onto the busy A33 and A35, has some residential areas. But despite hundreds of people using the area on a daily basis, footfall remains low as most employees in the area drive to work. Council plans to install yet more traffic lights have been criticise by motorists. More

See also:

Workmen lift car, paint yellow lines then give out fine!

admin — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:46:25 +0000

Workmen were so determined to put down double yellow lines that they hoisted a woman’s car into the air and painted them underneath. They then replaced the vehicle the other way round – complete with a parking ticket. Sally Baker left her Peugeot 206cc on Little Quay Street in Manchester city centre because the road had unrestricted parking. But when she got back she found the vehicle was facing the other way with double yellows underneath. The fine was removed after the M.E.N challenged the workmen. It was replaced by a note saying: “Your car has been repositioned by the council.” At least two other cars – a BMW and a Mini – were also lifted up by a truck as the lines were painted on Little Quay Street and Atkinson Street, just off Deansgate. Sally, a 39-year-old accountant from Urmston, said: “I parked on Little Quay Street having looked carefully for any parking restrictions in place. “To find out that the council moved my car, without my permission and then placed it on to double yellow lines they had just painted is disgraceful. More

See also:

Wasteful council put three speeding signs on tiny cul-de-sac!

admin — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 22:10:10 +0000

A council has been criticised for erecting three speed limit signs in a tiny village cul-de-sac where residents say it’s virtually impossible to speed. The new 30mph signs have been put in the road in Sutton St Nicholas in Herefordshire. However residents say the signs at Millway and the adjoining Willow Rise are completely unnecessary, as it’s virtually impossible to speed on the 25 metre long road. Resident John Hollywell, 67, said he had never seen anything like it during 30 years on his picturesque street, where houses are worth up to £300,000. “It seems nonsensical. It is bureaucracy gone mad,” he said. “Why they have done it we have no idea. It is utterly ridiculous because if someone even went round the bend doing more than 30mph they would go into a house. “It is a storm in a teacup but seems to me to be a total waste of money.” One of the signs was put up right outside his house. He added: “We were not informed it was going to happen. It just happened in the last fortnight. First they came and put the post in and then the 30mph signs appeared. “I would have thought a letter would come round saying it was going to happen.” The 30mph notices were discussed at the latest Sutton St Nicholas Parish Council meeting after residents felt the chances of travelling at that speed in such a small area were virtually impossible. More

See also:

Council wastes £130,000 building road crossing over driveway!

admin — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 22:23:20 +0000

A blundering council has wasted £130,000 of public money on a pedestrian road crossing that cannot be used. Bizarrely the puffin crossing was installed months after the same council granted residents Angela and Robin Wray planning permission for a driveway access to their house at exactly the same spot. Officials realised it would be unsafe to use the lights as pedestrians would have to stand at the entrance to the couple’s property. The lights have never been turned on in two years. Meanwhile, Kirklees Council has been fighting an expensive losing battle to try and legally ban the retired teachers from using the drive that they were given permission to build. Officials issued a ‘stopping up order’ to stop the access being used by cars, but Robin Wray, 66, and his wife Angela, 63, successfully appealed the ban at a public inquiry last month. Now councillors are coming under fire for running up a six-figure bill. To add insult to injury, if the council backs down it will cost taxpayers a further £30,000 to remove the crossing in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire. Mrs Wray, a mother-of-three and grandmother, yesterday described the council’s decision to build the crossing at the same spot as ‘sheer madness.’ More

See also:

Lady clamped and fined as she tried to do a U-turn in car park!

admin — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 20:08:11 +0000

A motorist had her car clamped while she was still at the wheel. Jessie Martin pulled into the car park to make a U-turn – but two vans from a clamping firm pulled in to block her exit. Two men approached her and ordered her to switch off the engine. When she obeyed, they fitted a clamp to her car. ‘These men just came out of nowhere,’ said Miss Martin, 31. ‘I thought I was getting robbed or something. They didn’t have any uniform on, they didn’t even have badges on. ‘He asked me to turn the engine off because he said something and I didn’t hear him – and that’s when he clamped me.’ Miss Martin said the clampers – from LBS Enforcement – had only pulled on identity badges after they had attached a clamp to her car. The mother-of-four called police and her partner after the clampers warned her the car would be towed and she would be charged £80 for every half hour they kept her waiting for their money. ‘She was in a terrible state when I got there,’ said her partner Michael Jenner, 39, a roofer. ‘She was crying and felt very intimidated. If she had parked then fair enough – but she was only turning around. More

See also:

Bristol line painters can’t spell ‘School’ correctly!

admin — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 21:09:36 +0000

The workmen who painted this sign deserve to wear the dunce’s hat and stand in the corner. Bungling council contractors wrote SHOOL KEEP CLEAR outside the gates of a Bristol primary school, whose pupils could no doubt teach them a thing or two. It was hoped the wording would ease school run congestion – but the schoolboy error has provoked hilarity among parents and local residents. Days after it appeared on the road in front of Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Primary School, the workmen slinked back to paint over it – this time with the missing C inserted in the correct place. The work was done by a firm called Prestige Line Painting, which is contracted by Bristol City Council. More

See also:

Pensioner fined £20,000 for parking in own space!

admin — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:32:16 +0000

A COWBOY parking firm has hit an elderly man with £20,000 of fines for leaving his car in his own parking space. James Reilly, 80, has been hounded by rogue attendants who ticket his car twice a week in a bay near his home. The retired building engineer is hit with stacks of tickets and threatening letters from Central Ticketing, despite their having no legal right to enforce fines, because he refuses to display an unnecessary permit to park on his own land. More

See also:

Driver lands £60 fine for stopping a minute to read parking sign!

admin — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 22:43:02 +0000

A mother was fined £60 after stopping her car for one minute to read a parking sign. Claire Hallam, 45, pulled into the parking bay in Lewisham, south London, so that she could look at a sign telling her when she was allowed to park in the area. But as soon as she got out to read the sign – which has a big blue ‘P’ on it, indicating parking is allowed at some point in the day – she was told by a shop owner she should “move quickly” to avoid a fine. She dashed back into her car and left 60 seconds after she had parked. However, a CCTV camera caught her on tape and she was promptly issued with a £60 fine – £1 for every second she was parked in the space. She has since returned to the spot and found that the sign allows parking for 20 minutes between 10am and 4pm for loading, but otherwise there is no stopping between 7am-7pm. Mrs Hallam, a part time school co-ordinator, said she was “disgusted” that she could be issued with such a large fine for such a short stop simply to read the terms and conditions of parking. She said: “There was a big blue ‘P’ on the sign, so I pulled over to get a closer look and see how long I would be allowed to stop for. More

See also:

8 coppers arrest drunken grandfather on mobility scooter!

admin — Wed, 26 May 2010 20:04:28 +0000

Riding home on his mobility scooter at less than 4 mph, Eamonn Donohoe wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry and didn’t appear to be a menace to pedestrians. But when the drunken Irishman ignored a policeman’s attempt to flag him down, the local constabulary decided to take no chances. As Mr Donohoe, 62, was trundling along the pavement near his sheltered bungalow he found himself surrounded by eight police officers and three marked vehicles. One patrol car mounted the kerb to block his way and after failing a roadside breath test the disabled grandfather was locked in police cells for 12 hours, fingerprinted, photographed and had a DNA swab taken. Mr Donohoe, who had drunk six or seven pints during an evening playing dominoes with friends at a local club, was three times over the limit. He later admitted driving a mechanically propelled vehicle whilst over the limit on 20th April and was given a three year driving ban by magistrates at Chesterfield. However, despite the nature of the offence he is legally free to continue riding his scooter. But the bizarre episode has left the retired construction worker from Old Whittington, Chesterfield, feeling disillusioned with the forces of law and order. He said:’I can’t believe how they treated me – anybody would think that I was a bank robber or a member of Al-Qaeda. ‘The police are always saying they’re short of resources, and then go and employ eight officers arresting someone like me. It’s completely mad, and a total waste of public money. More

See also:

New double yellow lines painted around motorist, who is then fined!

admin — Tue, 11 May 2010 22:28:49 +0000

A baffled motorist was left fuming after returning to her parked car to find double yellow lines painted either side of it – and a parking ticket slapped on the windscreen. Bungling parking officials fined June Williams yesterday despite road markings only being painted round her vehicle after she had parked. Debt collector Mrs Williams, 58, said she has parked in the same spot on Mondays and Tuesdays near work in Wolverhampton for 18 months. But when she left her Mitsubishi Challenger in her usual spot and returned to her car after work at 4.30pm, she found newly painted double yellow lines had been painted up to her front wheels – then restarted behind her car’s boot. To cap the bizarre episode, she was slapped with a £70 fine on her windscreen – but is refusing to pay it. The mother of two, from Wolverhampton, who had never received a parking fine before, said: ‘I’m absolutely gobsmacked. There’s no way I should have to pay and I will fight it. More

See also:

White line painted across 3ft wide pothole!

admin — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 20:47:39 +0000

Bungling council workers painted a white line over a three-foot pothole on a busy road in Birmingham instead of filling it in. Despite the trench-like pothole being noticeable, highway workers seemed to carry on regardless, painting over the crater on the Hagley Road. The white line covers nearly half of the pothole and the blunder has been criticised by the TaxPayers’ Alliance, which has branded it a waste of tax payers money. Emma Boon, campaign manager for the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘It seems a silly idea to paint a road marking over a pot hole. ‘It will cost the tax payer more for the council to fill it and repaint the line. ‘If the council had done things in the right order and gone about the repair in a sensible manner it would save the tax payer money.’ More

See also:

£28m backlog of perfectly driveable vehicles waiting to be scrapped!

admin — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 19:45:43 +0000

Sitting nose to tail on a disused airstrip, these cars form a tiny part of the massive backlog of vehicles destined for the scrap heap. The number standing idly on the runway has swelled to around 14,000 as mechanics struggle to cope with the popularity of the Government’s scrappage scheme, which ended last week. The former airfield in Thurleigh, Bedfordshire, is one of a number of ‘holding areas’ packed with vehicles sold through Lord Mandelson’s £400million incentive scheme. More

See also:

Britain’s roads ‘plagued by pointless signs’!

admin — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 21:18:11 +0000

Language campaigners said today too many pointless signs were springing up next to Britain’s roads. The Plain English Campaign (PEC) – which aims to reduce gobbledegook – said roadsides were filling up with “too much information about nothing”. Officials said drivers were being distracted and money wasted. The group made its complaints as the Highways Agency, a Government agency which manages major roads, said it had decided against planting signs saying “Highways Agency” next to motorways across the country – after spending £76,000 of taxpayers’ money on a “pilot project” in the north west of England. A Highways Agency spokesman said 23 “Highways Agency” signs had been installed alongside the M6 and 11 alongside the A66 in 2005 as part of an experiment. “Police constantly tell motorists not to use mobiles or eat or drink when driving but to concentrate on driving,” said a PEC spokesman. “Yet at the same time there seem to be more and more signs springing up to distract motorists. More

See also:

Council waste £2000 on Uk’s shortest cycle lane!

admin — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 21:30:47 +0000

A council has been condemned for wasting taxpayers’ money after it built a cycle lane just 8ft long. At little more than the length of a single bicycle, the £2,000 road marking has left cyclists in Cardiff bemused. The feature, thought to be the shortest cycle lane in Britain, has been installed to encourage green transport. Cardiff Council claims that it will help riders safely navigate a turn on a new road layout. But riders in the city say the brevity of the red and white marked stretch of road renders it pointless. Kevin Hughes, 47, a cyclist from the Welsh city, said: “It’s just hilarious. I saw it as I was cycling past and couldn’t believe my eyes. “Obviously nobody could cycle in it because it is so small. You just have time to get in the saddle before getting off again.” Mr Hughes, a member of Cardiff Ajax Cycling Club, added: “I posted a picture of it on the club forum and it’s started a bit of a laugh. “I’ve got no idea why it would be there. You couldn’t ride a bike down there anyway because cars go flying past.” Campaigners also questioned why the local authority has spent money on the cycle lane, which takes less than a second to cover before rejoining the main carriageway. Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “It is just this sort of waste that raises the hackles of taxpayers. More

See also:

Traffic wardens ticket car after it rolls 6ft out of drive!

admin — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:16:48 +0000

A traffic warden placed a parking ticket on a car after it rolled out of a driveway and onto a yellow line when its handbrake failed. Instead of alerting the owner of the blue family car that it had rolled out of the drive and into the street in Croydon this week he issued at £60 ticket. According to locals the owners of the car are on holiday and the car had only trundled about 6ft before coming to a halt on a yellow line. One neighbour said: “It was totally ridiculous. Here was a car that had simply rolled about 6ft out of a driveway and into the street. “The handbrake had obviously failed and that was pretty clear from the situation, but this warden just turned up, saw his chance and stuck a ticket on the car without even checking the house where it was parked. More

See also:

9,000 parking tickets uncollected due to computer error!

admin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:02:04 +0000

Almost 9,000 parking tickets have gone unpaid in a cash strapped town after a computer blip which went on for a year. An IT bottleneck meant the legal department collecting fines was not passed the essential information it needed about the £30 fixed penalties. The blip cost taxpayers in Oldham, Greater Manchester £283,000 in lost revenue as a result of fines not being paid. It was discovered whilst finance officials were budgeting for road improvements – but they claimed it could not be resolved due to technical difficulties. The Liberal Democrat run council – already facing a £5m legal bill for the bungled fraud prosecution of a local businessman – blamed ”system failure” and insisted the fines would now be pursued. But local Labour councillor Peter Dean said: ”This is clearly incompetence by the Lib-Dem-controlled council, who have failed to collect monies owed. ”This leaves a big hole of £283,000 in the council’s already very tight budget and is mismanagement on a gigantic scale.” More

See also:

Ambulance drivers could now face sack for speeding to emergencies!

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:13:22 +0000

Ambulance drivers face the sack if they ignore a ‘ludicrous’ diktat that they must not drive too fast to emergencies. NHS bureaucrats have decided that paramedics who go as little as 10mph above the speed limit should face formal disciplinary action. Repeat ‘offenders’ could be dismissed under rules drawn up by half of the 12 ambulance trusts in England, covering around 25million people. This is despite a police ruling that ambulance drivers caught exceeding the speed limit will be spared prosecution if they are dealing with an emergency. Roger Goss, co-director of Patient Concern, said the orders put lives at risk at a time when the NHS is struggling to cope because of the bad weather. He said: ‘I would have thought you employed ambulance staff who you trusted to drive safely without some diktat from HQ.’ Ambulance drivers say they should be trusted to use their discretion about how fast they can safely travel. A spokesman for the union Unison said: ‘If it was your mother or father who was in an ambulance in an emergency you would want them to get to hospital as quickly as possible. ‘Paramedics should be trusted to use their training and common sense to make the best decisions depending on the road conditions.’ More

See also:

Taxi drivers offered their Hackney Carriage licence forms in Braille!

admin — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 23:18:36 +0000

Taxi drivers applying for their Hackney Carriage licence are being offered the forms in Braille by a council. A notice at the end reads: “You can get this Portsmouth City Council information in large print, Braille, audio or in another language….” The council, a member of the Plain English Campaign, defended the forms. Head of customer services Louise Wilders said: “Obviously, a taxi driver would not need the Braille version, but they might find a foreign language version helpful. More

See also:

Guys charged after driving car along frozen canal!

admin — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 23:20:51 +0000

Two men have been charged with reckless conduct after a car which was being driven on a frozen canal plunged through the ice. The men, aged 24 and 22, are accused of driving a Peugeot 406 on the Union Canal, near Winchburgh in West Lothian, on Monday afternoon. The ice gave way but the occupants managed to escape from the car, which was found by the emergency services. More

See also:

Parking fines of £40,000 raised in 3 years in small street!

admin — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:24:51 +0000

Parking wardens have issued more than £40,000 worth of fines in one small city street during the course of three years. East Street is just 400ft long but has been the focus of so many tickets one driver believes it is a “trap” for motorists. During the past year, 552 tickets have been issued to motorists parking on the single yellow lines in the road, with 223 of those handed out on Sundays. One of those caught out was Adam Krupa who was fined after parking there in November. He has refused to pay his £70 fine to Leicester City Council and says he will go to court to challenge the case. Mr Krupa claims the street is seen as a parking warden’s “bread and butter” and signs which warn drivers it is illegal to park there are too small and in the wrong place. After getting the fine, Mr Krupa used the Freedom of Information Act to ask Leicester City Council how much money it had collected from other motorists in East Street since it took over parking enforcement and discovered it was £40,000. He said: “One of the biggest shocks was the amount of revenue generated from this tiny street. “I’d parked for 10 minutes and went into Dunelm Mill opposite when I got back I’d got the ticket. “After speaking to people, I’m told this is happening day in, day out, and that everybody is getting caught because they think they can park there. “Double yellow lines should be painted and the signs are too small it really is a trap.” The fine for parking on yellow lines is £70, which is reduced to £35 if it is paid within 14 days. Kim Pelham, manager of Dunelm Mill, which sells soft furnishings and home wares in East Street, agreed. He said: “It happens all the time, especially on a Sunday. “There are usually three or four wardens out there waiting for people, they know it’s hard to tell if you can park there. The signs aren’t very clear and they should really paint double yellow lines.” More

See also:

We no longer have ‘motorists’ under new government speak!

admin — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 22:12:07 +0000

Government officials have banned Highways Agency staff from using the word ‘motorist’, saying they should say ‘road user’ or ‘driver’ instead. The edict is included in a lengthy set of guidelines issued by the Agency, setting out what language its employees should and should not use. Other terms to be avoided include “winter maintenance”, “off-peak hours” and “the travelling public”. The move has brought an angry response from motoring campaigners. Peter Roberts of the Drivers’ Alliance, a pro-motoring group, said: “This is an absurd and typically overly-bureaucratic piece of guidance that just goes to reinforce the belief that this Government has an ideological hatred of motorists and anything to do with the motor vehicle. “We’ve had years of increases on fuel duty and policies that have worsened road travel for the majority of people because ministers are wedded to the idea that public transport is good, while most forms of private transport are bad.” James May, the television presenter, called the guidance a “complete waste of time and money”. “It’s pretty preposterous,” he said. “It’s not the Government’s job to tell their staff how to speak. They should tell them not to be racist or not to incite murder, but not the correct word for someone who happens to be in a car. For God’s sake, we’re all grown-ups. “The word ‘motorists’ covers people driving cars very well. Admittedly it doesn’t cover people on bicycles but then we have the word ‘cyclists’ for that, and ‘pedestrians’ for people who are walking. More

See also:

Parking ticket given to road sweeper for picking up broken bottle!

admin — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 23:01:52 +0000

A road cleaner was given a £70 parking ticket for stopping his sweeping machine for a minute to pick up a broken bottle. Justin Wickett, 22, stopped to pick up the jagged glass thinking someone could step on it and hurt themselves. In doing so, he parked his electric road sweeper for some 60 seconds in a vacant disabled parking bay in St Austell, Cornwall. But in that time a council parking attendant spotted the vehicle and wrote out a £70 parking ticket. Mr Wickett said: “I explained I was moving the glass because someone could cut themselves but he was only interested in my machine. “I was not blocking anyone or causing an obstruction. Obviously he wasn’t in the Christmas spirit.” Ironically, both ultimately work for Cornwall Council, although Mr Wickett does so through a contracted company. He works for Serco, a private amenities firm which has the Cornwall Council street cleaning contract for the area. Andrew Pidgen, of Serco, said: “The operative was alerted to a broken bottle. The street was busy, but he stopped quickly to clear the hazard. More

See also:

Tiny christmas tree removed from roundabout by authorities!

admin — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 23:50:55 +0000

The large tree – covered with decorations – had been placed in the middle of a drab roundabout by residents in Dobwalls, Cornwall. But officers from the Highways Agency moved in overnight and took the fir down claiming it was an ‘unauthorised item’. The officials said they had taken the tree away because it could be a distraction or a danger to motorists. But residents have criticised the officials for having “no Christmas spirit”. Sylvia Crome, who helped erect the tree, said: ”It’s Christmas and with all the terrible things happening in the world they have to do something like this. ”A Highways Agency van drove past us when we were putting it up and they took it away in the dead of night two days later – they didn’t even tell us. ”I think they are being quite petty, they have no Christmas spirit. I think it’s absolutely pathetic, I really don’t believe it.” Robert Newton, chairman of the parish council, said: ”It’s supposed to be the season of goodwill – where is theirs?” The tree was put up by villagers on Sunday night but had disappeared by 6am on Tuesday morning. More

See also:

Council ridiculed over bus lane error!

admin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 22:27:59 +0000

A council has been ridiculed after contractors misspelt road markings on its new £116 million guided busway by painting the letter N back to front. The 3ft white letter is painted at the entrance of the route on Milton Road in Cambridge, which should read “GUIDED BUS ONLY”. David Steel, a software test manager his 50s, took a photograph of the sign, whose backwards N looks like a symbol in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. Mr Steel said the error in the sign reading was “amazing”. He said: “It seems they have tripped over themselves again. “Despite having several examples of the letter ‘N’ painted on the road just yards away, the signwriter still managed to get it wrong. More

See also:

Taxpayers face huge bill for aborted road pricing plans!

admin — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 23:59:56 +0000

Taxpayers have spent nearly £50 million on the Government’s plans to introduce pay as you drive charging for motorists, it has emerged. Despite announcing that national road pricing is off the agenda for the foreseeable future, the Department for Transport has also spent £7.2 million on “demonstration” projects, testing the technology. This is on top of £23.6 million the DfT used to persuade major urban areas to introduce some form of charging scheme by pouring money into the local economy. The only city, outside London, to consider this option to date has been Greater Manchester. But the plans were scrapped after being overwhelmingly rejected in a referendum. And this was only after the Government spent £16.1 million in an attempt to get the scheme off the ground. A number of places, including Cambridgeshire, Leeds, the Thames Valley and Bristol are reported to be considering some form of pricing. But with the exception of Cambridgeshire, no plans have been submitted. Even the embryonic Cambridgeshire scheme is facing fierce opposition and has yet to win Government backing. Although national charging has been ditched the Cabinet Office produced a report last month in which it still nurtured hopes that some form of road pricing should be considered as a way of tackling congestion. More

See also:

Doctor loses court battle to park scooter legally on his own property!

admin — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:12:41 +0000

His story will enrage homeowners. A doctor who’s spent years fighting attempts to fine him for parking his scooter on his own land lost a court ruling that means YOU could now be fined for parking on your own drive Two years ago, I received a parking ticket on my scooter. Nothing remarkable about that, you might think, but here’s the catch: it was parked on land I owned at the time. That one ticket turned out to be the first step in a £10,000 legal battle, which has made me despair at the state of our ramshackle parking laws. Along the way, I have discovered a world of greedy and despotic traffic wardens, driven by petty bureaucrats drunk on power. In the course of my long and painful journey, I found out that – astonishingly – it can be illegal to park on your own land if it is not separated from the road by a physical barrier. Indeed, a ruling made in my court case last week means that your driveway or front garden could now be preyed on by traffic wardens, even if it is clearly private property. So just how did I come to discover these unpleasant truths? In 2007, I parked my scooter outside my office in central London, as I had done many times before. I had just returned from an emergency dash to my clinic, where I work as a doctor specialising in travel medicine. Later, I found a penalty notice, issued by Camden Council, across its instrument panel. At first, I was merely annoyed. The parking space was clearly private, on a Tarmac area. It had been behind iron railings until a redevelopment in the mid-Nineties, and is clearly marked on the deeds of the property that I own. For further clarity, a sign politely declared: ‘This forecourt is private property and is not dedicated as a public footway.’ More

See also: