You've Bean Nicked!

According to the guy I listen to on Dee Radio driving in to work this week, there has been some filming going on in the Handbridge area of Chester and some 1980s era cars been seen parked there.

A bit more digging by the breakfast DJ came up with Anemone, a film that will star Daniel Day-Lewis and Sean Bean.

There have been no sightings of the much-married Sean Bean or the much-retired Daniel Day-Lewis. According to Wikipedia, Daniel's first retirement in 1997 was cobblers.

Anyway, the BBC are reporting today that those cars have been ticketed by traffic wardens.

The cars, were allegedly parked on double-yellow lines - none are visible in the photos so has another crime been committed in covering them over?  Google Streetview does clearly show them:

It appears that the Council did not give any special permissions for the filming so the arrogance of the film team may have come in to play - or maybe this was a calculated risk and they are happy to pay the fines.

I am a bit more surprised that they think that in the 1980s, everybody drove Fords.

Or is it because the production company are called Focus Features?

Parking Made Complicated

This story took a bit of getting my head around.

Here in the UK, you can rent out the driveway of your home to someone who needs a parking space in the vicinity.  Martin Lewis has an article about it here.

Similar schemes seem to run in Australia.

One of them is called "Parking Made Easy" and it is them who feature in the story above.  The story is headlined...

Wish someone would pay your parking fine? Now they can.

If you sign up to their service, they will pay off your parking fines or help with putting together appeal letters if you want to challenge your fine.

So what is to stop you parking wherever you like and then getting them to pay your fines?

Herein lies the catch.

They will only pay off the fine of one lucky winner of a draw performed every month.  Bad news for the motorists of Queensland at least...

Queensland motorists owe $42.3 million in unpaid parking fines

So the initial headline is misleading.

Maybe not surprising since the author, Kathryn Fisk admits to having worked for The Sun - a paper aimed at the hard of thinking.  She has also apparently worked on two "renowned" UK regional publications although I can't find anything by her outside of Australia.  Google does come up with the message, "Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe." which means that someone has stated that they don't want irrelevant stuff they've done searchable.  So I tried Bing.  Someone in Silicon Valley must have been briefly excited that somebody outside of Microsoft had just used Bing but they also couldn't find anything by her.

You'd probably have more luck finding an article by me.

Not Fine Parking

May must be motoring offences month with two more stories from the BBC today.

The first one involves lots of people in High Wycombe parking where they shouldn't.

In a car park.

And they weren't told that they shouldn't park there.

And in reality, it was only a small corner of the car park that they shouldn't have parked in.

So some sad traffic warden has wasted a few hours doing this:

All tickets were rescinded - the story is here.

While up in Scotland - on a roundabout clearly marked with Police "No Waiting" cones, somebody has parked there anyway - on top of a steel drum:

That story is here - it was a stolen car.

Can't tell if the car was damaged or not - I would suspect it has been.

But if it hasn't been then that is a bit of very impressive parking.

And they have avoided getting a ticket.

Rubbish Parking

Traffic Wardens are very unpopular.

This is because they seem more interested in revenue income than in keeping the roads clear and safe.  It's probably not their fault - the Councils are desperate for money and see the motorist as an easy source of income.

Where I used to work, people (not me I hasten to add) would often park on the pavement.  The local traffic wardens would come along making a lot of fuss and noise and give people a chance to shift their cars.  Only after 10 to 15 minutes would they start ticketing.  This achieved a removal of illegally parked cars and no ill-feeling.  I suspect nowadays they would be expected to hide around the corner and jump out as soon as a car was left and the owner was out of sight - I sincerely hope that this isn't the case.

Anyway, traffic wardens are unpopular and stories showing them in a good light are few and far between.  Here is one I posted three years ago.

And here is a Mac cartoon from The Daily Mail from about six years ago:

That cartoon combined the Daily Mail's hatred of wheelie bins with the general dislike of traffic wardens.

The Daily Mail hate lots of sensible things so I wouldn't be too bothered about that - but no traffic warden would really ticket a wheelie-bin would they?

No.

But one with a sense of humour might stick a parking-ticket cover on one that was causing an obstruction:

I found the story on the BBC Website claiming in the headline that it had been ticketed but then admitting in the article that it hadn't.

Lots of other sites also got hold of the story including, of course, the odious Daily Mail.  To be fair to them, they did put "parking ticket" in quotes signifying that it wasn't a real ticket.  It then added the taglines

• Parking warden appeared to give wheelie bin parking ticket in Carmarthen
• The Biffa waste bin was left blocking the road on double yellow lines
• Locals slam warden for 'wasting' council resources and time
• He is now being investigated by the local authority for his conduct

The first is true.  The second isn't - it was too small to block the road.  The third is also not true - it was just one sad salesman who spoke to The Mail - remember that councils and their employees are two groups that the Mail hate.  Finally, unfortunately, the fourth is true:

Carmarthenshire Council Traffic and safety manager John McEvoy said: 'The officer was patrolling the area when a member of the public pointed out that the wheelie bin was an obstruction, and asked if he was going to book it. The officer, in a light-hearted moment, wrapped a Penalty Charge Notice envelope around the bin handle.There was no ticket issued, it is not possible to book a wheelie bin or anything that is not motorised.Although this was meant as a humorous incident, we take this kind of thing very seriously and have launched a formal investigation into the conduct of this officer.'

It is very rare that I agree with Daily Mail readers but, if you look at the comments at the bottom of the story, the concensus is that the warden had a sense of humour and John McEvoy needs to get a life and not waste council resources following it up.

I also liked the comments from the bin company:

A spokesman for waste collection company Biffa said 'It's a relief to learn that the bin in question isn't in trouble with the council. The ticket issued was simply a throw-away gesture and proved to be a load of rubbish. We are wheelie careful and do our best to make sure that our bins are in the correct locations at all times.'

Now, if you still want a story of traffic wardens having a hard time, this is one from 2012.

The Ideal Christmas Present for The Traffic Warden in Your Life

It's almost Christmas Eve, the day that traditionally, men visit their local petrol station to stock up on Christmas presents for their loved ones.

The Telegraph motoring section has suggestions today including a "Parking Ticket Holder"

It is actually a clear bit of plastic that you are supposed to fix pay-and-display tickets to your windows with.  It costs £1.99 which seems excessive and I would be very miffed if someone bought me one of these for Christmas.

 

It is claimed that it helps prevent "sticky mess" on the window.  I never suffer from sticky mess on my windows but, then again, I never attach pay-and-display tickets to my windows - I just leave them, clearly visible on the dashboard.  However, the Tikettak (for that is what it is called) sticks to the window with an adhesive strip - bet that makes a mess if you take it off.

 

They make a big deal about it being manufactured in the UK.  Good.  However, some of the errors in their Website make me suspect that the producers themselves are not British:

 

  "unless, of course, you don’t mind whether the logo is legible properly!"

 



This may only be available online so it could be too late to get one for Christmas time so I guess it is off to the filling station now.

Charcoal Brickettes anyone?

Disc Breaks

or should I call it "Tax Brakes"?

No, this story is about tax discs not disc brakes.

I'm not sure why George Osborne announced that he was scrapping the Tax Disc this afternoon.

Because everyone knew that it was happening this morning - along with the rest of his Autumn Statement.  The BBC had it here.  Autocar had it here.

They used this picture.  That registration number belongs to a Range-Rover.  I wonder if it was just parked outside their offices or it belongs to a member of staff there - it isn't the one that comes up if you look for a review of a Range-Rover on their site.

The BBC have also used this as an excuse to bring back their occasional (and amusing) RIP item with "R.I.P. Car Tax Disc".  These sometimes prompt amusing tributes from the readership - I await these in mild anticipation.

What the scrapping of the discs doesn't mean, though, is the scrapping of the tax.  That will continue to be collected and the Police will have access to the databases which tell them who has actually paid - although your average traffic warden or nosey neighbour won't be able to easily tell.

The tax itself is "vehicle excise duty" not "road tax".  I make this point because this comes up every time anyone mentions tax discs - it comes up a lot in the comments at the end of the main BBC article.  Cyclists generally make this point a lot.

I am an occasional cyclist myself but very much take the Jeremy Clarkson point-of-view on this:

Not Very Smart

This story made me laugh when I read it in my local free-paper, The Wirral Globe.






It follows on from my 2010 post about the spy-cars that Wirral Borough Council are using to bring in revenue/stop illegal and dangerous parking*

*delete as applicable

My opinion of parking enforcement operatives isn't that high - despite eco-friendly ones getting in the papers. The guy in charge of this car managed to open his door as a bus was coming along with the result as seen in these pictures.

The Council were keen to play down the incident - a spokesperson said: "A CCTV vehicle operated by NSL was involved in a minor road traffic collision with a bus whilst carrying out parking enforcement activity on behalf of Wirral Council. Nobody was injured, although both vehicles were damaged and were taken off the road for repair.

A replacement CCTV vehicle has been deployed by NSL so there will be no gap in the provision of parking enforcement services."

The Council are obviously more concerned that they are still getting in revenue rather than looking at what caused this.

Surely, either the Spy-car was parked dangerously or the bus driver was driving too close to parked vehicles. In either case, the Spy-car driver should have looked in his mirror before opening the door - buses are quite big.

The article keeps referring to the Spy-car as a Smart. It is true that the first Spy-cars in use here were Smarts (I refer you back to my 2010 article) but this is a Toyota iQ (or possibly an Aston Martin Cygnet - but if it is a Cygnet then the Council have too much money and I want a refund of my Council Tax)

It doesn't make a lot of difference if it is a Smart or an iQ apart from the fact that I should rename this post to mention traffic wardens not having much in the way of IQ.

A Kind-Hearted Traffic Warden

That can't be right!

But it is. He took pity on a Falcon.No, not a Ford Falcon - the bird of prey type of falcon. He rescued it on New Year's Day in Birkenhead when it was knackered after being blown about in the gales. The story is covered here on the Liverpool Echo site with a nice comment added by a reader at the end. Being Birkenhead, it could be the same git who booked my wife a few years back when she was three minutes late getting back to her car with a load of shopping and two bickering children. I appealed against a £60 fine for three minutes but the Council weren't interested - and they wonder why traffic wardens need stories like this to try and boost their image. Here is the bird-loving one, his name is Lee Gallagher and he is releasing the bird back into the grey skies at Hamilton Square:
The BBC also had that story, but since I posted last month about how I am finished with the BBC - I can't really link to them now, can I?

Then, on Monday, I finally picked up the new copy of Top Gear Magazine which was delivered last week but I haven't had chance to look at, what with Christmas and everything, and I saw that the new series of Top Gear TV starts on January 29th. Yippee! Well, maybe not "yippee", maybe more "I'll quite look forward to that"

The Christmas special didn't grab me the way Top Gear usually does and I'm finding I'm enjoying Fifth Gear a lot more than TG nowadays - is my disillusionment with Auntie Beeb affecting my motoring televisual enjoyment - or am I just getting bored with TG? I don't know - I'll let you know after the new series.

Then, yesterday, I got my annual letter from Richard & James extolling to me the virtues of subscribing to my next year with Top Gear Magazine - they really ought to change that letter - it's getting very stale. Anyway, could this be a good chance to show my displeasure with The Beeb?

Damn it, I still really enjoy the magazine and I pay for it with Tesco Clubcard Reward tokens so they'll not be making much out of that so a new subscription it is.

I've given up on their blogs though now - I've found like-minded people (and so far no trolls) on Facebook which leads me, rather neatly, to the fact I've joined Facebook!

I've set up a Metro's Car Blog page but I'll just monitor how that goes along and see whether or not it's worth keeping it going. I've put my two favoutite pictures of Vicki Butler-Henderson on there for starters.

And, while we're on the subject of social networking, I think I finally understand why anyone who isn't Stephen Fry might want to Tweet on Twitter. "Friends" are actually interested and comment when you add stuff to your Facebook wall so it's the same logic. I've not played with Twitter yet - maybe a job for next New-Years but someone who does is NASCAR driver Kasey Kahne.

I'll leave you with this story from last week from Autoguide.com