Parking Not Fine

Warning! The following post isn't constructive or creative or related to work or anything artistic, it's just a rant!

I got a parking fine the other day, or a bus lane fine, or a Penalty Charge Notice. I thought it was a mistake. I don't drive in bus lanes, I hadn't parked anywhere I shouldn't have and I didn't think I'd gone down a one way street backwards.

Here's the letter:

and here's the photo from the back of the letter showing my car 'in' the bus lane:

I'd been driving to work on a clear road, following a white van which braked suddenly to turn right. I swerved to the left, moving into the bus lane for a fraction of a second in order to avoid the van. I'd got a £120 fine for doing this.

I've been driving for 20 years and through a mixture of good luck and common sense I've never been given a speeding ticket or had an accident. But living in the Borough of Newham, it's almost impossible to avoid getting tickets from cameras located at the top of masts and being monitored from afar. This is my third ticket.

The first ticket I received was for waiting outside Canning Town Tube station, in a lay by regularly used to pick people up and drop people off. It's regularly used because it's the only lay by there. I couldn't understand why I received a parking ticket for parking there. I stayed in my car for the duration I was waiting, which was no more than five minutes. After conversations with the council it transpired that whilst I'd been waiting in my car all along, I'd been waiting for more than four minutes, after which, by using a remote camera, the council are within their rights to fine people £120. There are no signs I am aware of informing people of this fact. I have no idea how many people have been fined this way.

The second ticket I received was when I took a wrong turn down a back road and accidentally drove over a raised part of the road which does have signs saying that cars are not allowed, but which although obvious, I managed to miss. It's a regular residential road which used to allow cars to pass but which for whatever reason no longer allows anything but emergency vehicles to pass. Again I was fined £120. You can see what I'm refering to here.

Here is a Google map showing the places I've been issued fines.

So with the arrival of this third ticket and what seems like a gross misuse of the power to issue tickets I decided to challenge the PCN. Here's what I wrote on 8th September 2010:

... and here's the response I got 3 months later ...

.... and here, presented in a top ten list, is why the response, and the whole situation has frustrated me enough to spend an hour of my time writing about it when I could be doing something much less boring instead....

1. I accept that fines can be an effective way to enforce good road use and hence make the roads safer. Nonetheless, any objective analysis of the circumstances, and the photograph of the transgression would surely conclude that it is incorrect to fine someone for avoiding an accident or at the very least, driving safely.
2. In my challenge to the parking fine I set out the point that I was challenging the parking fine on the basis that it had been issued with no consideration to road safety and this point, whilst being valid -  it's why they issue the fines in the first place, right? - was not addressed in any way.
3. Despite not addressing my legitimate challenge to the PCN, the last line of the latest correspondence from Newham Council states 'Please note that Newham Council will not consider any further correspondence regarding this penalty charge until the enforcement notice is issued.' This means that I'm not allowed to address the fact that the council have completely ignored my challenge until the fine has changed from the reduced rate of £60 to £120. Furthermore we are talking about a lot of money here. For many people £60, or the full rate of £120 is a days wages and yet the council will not even enter into correspondence relating to genuine grievances and challenges.
4. The first paragraph of the latest correspondence states 'I apologise for the delay in response which is due to a correspondence scanning backlog'. It took them 3 months to get this letter to me, but I only have 14 days to respond and pay the fine.
5. If they have a 3 month backlog of correspondence, how many fines are they issuing?
6. The whole second page of the councils correspondence is dedicated all the different ways to pay the fine, despite this being correspondence relating to a challenge of it. It's amazing, it's almost as if this system is designed to make money for the council rather than for the safety of the residence of the borough who the council are answerable to.
7. It's a small one this, but why is the London Borough of Newham Parking and Traffic Enforcement section located at 218 miles away at PO Box 1125, Warrington? Why is it not located in the borough that it 'serves'?
8. 1/4 mile up the same road on which I was issued a ticket it becomes impossible not to drive with two wheels in the bus lane. This is due to parked traffic and oncoming buses on the opposite lane. Everyone has to drive with two wheels in the bus lane. The council doesn't appear to issue tickets for these transgressions, so there seems to be little consistency to the way in which the fines are issued.
9. I genuinely believe that I drive less safely now than before being issued with this fine. I avoid putting two wheels into the bus lane at all costs, even when it is the safe and sensible thing to do because of close oncoming traffic. It cannot be right that the council's policy relating to the issuing of PCN's causes people to drive less safely.
10. Councils behaving in this way lead people to have no respect for, or trust in them. As a society we criticise people in our neighbourhoods for dropping litter or painting graffiti through to people not contributing to 'big society' or not paying their taxes and yet I honestly believe that Newham Council and others like them are leading the way in demonstrating how not to be a good and honest neighbour.

So, I don't think I need to say this, but I won't be paying the £60 reduced rate fine. According to their letter, I'm not able to correspond further with the council until my fine has gone up to the full £120. I'll  post here when I hear back from them. Has anyone else had an experience like this? ... something tells me I'm probably not the only one.