Parking Tickets

[mickthenick]

Now the local authorities are responsible for parking enforcement there seems to be no discression any more.  At least the traffic wardens often used some common sense, it is now popular to just take a photo and send a ticket.  In Windsor they even watch you park, if your back wheel is just on the double yellow they don't tell you about it, they wait for you to walk off then issue a ticket.  The council think they are sucessful as they issue heaps more tickets than the police did, parking enforcement isn't just about tickets, it's about common sense and toleration by the enforcement officers, they are there to assist the public and paid for by the public, a little bit of power seems to go to their heads.  The councils are getting far too much power and they often abuse it.  I never thought I would say it, BUT - bring back the police traffic wardens...

[enforce-logic forum administrator]

The councils are getting too much power and they don't know how to deal with it, they should remember they are public servants and they are there to serve the public.  I notice when they wrote the regulations their council vehicles are exempt from the parking regulations !!  So much for 'partnership' when they can then issue tickets to police vehicles.  The country has gone mad.

[spud]

Do police officers still issue parking tickets? Or at least are they able to???

[enforce-logic forum administrator]

I think police officers can still issue parking tickets, they can certainly issue other fixed penalty notices, in fact a lot of minor traffic offences are now dealt with by tickets, they all used to be reported for summons, guess we don't have enough Court time these days to deal with all that.

[Litew8]

Police officers can still issue parking tickets in the force I serve, but many FPN offences have been given to the council to deal with (e.g. bus-lane violation by vehicles other than busses), however as a response officer the constraints on our time mean I don't see my colleagues or myself issuing that many outside of the No-Insurance Endorseable FPN or perhaps the odd one to some numpty who pulls up next to a marked unit at the traffic lights still on his mobile whilst he's getting evils from either my driver or me and fails to get the hint... ;-)

[Deschain]

Hi,

I work in Edinburgh and Parking issues have been devolved to a Private company contracted by the local council. Yellow line issues are now dealt with by Police Traffic wardens.

The private company are seen as ruthless by the majority and even issue tickets to marked police vehicles that attend court etc.

A sad reflection of the times in Edinburgh and other large cities me thinks. Councils are only interested in generating revenue and the public don't matter. Just look at our tram fiasco! Major disruption and expense to the public for very little benefit...

[FN21]

It's madness - I have even heard of police vehicles pulled up at 999 callls and abandoned being ticketed - this vid shows a traffic warden ticketing a Police car http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0upxT4PpPQ

[heedlessmunkey]

Do PCSO's not take on this role in most forces?

[FN21]

No, not in Merseyside at least, anything involving yellow lines is up to the council.

[jo90]

If you read the small print in most councils parking regulations, their vehicles are exempt from being ticketed if they are watering the flowers, emptying car park machines, etc etc.  How on earth they can issue a ticket to a marked police vehicle is beyond me, no common sense whatsoever, talk about working in partnership.  their managers should sort them, unfortunately they are probably being directed to do it by the manangers, like most other things to do with councils, it's all statistics, just numbers.  Councils have been given far too much power by the government, and have continued to abuse most of it, like use of PNC and surveillance etc.

[FN21]

Couldn't agree more, it seems that the PI culture is ten times worse in the council than it is in the Police service even!

[jimbob]

It always struck me as odd that in some areas when CCTV was coming in that the councils opted to get the government money to do this, and some police forces sat back and let them.  When things go wrong all you hear on TV is that there needs to be more and better communication and they 'will learn lessons' BUT they never seem to.  One day they will move away from call centres and trying to condense everything down into one place, they will realise it worked better when each small area ran it's own systems.  Now computers can record and store everything someone at HQ could have an overview, it always worked in the old days even without computers.  You watch, the companies will start pulling their call centres out of India etc, then they will slowly devolve back to branches etc, and the police will be 10 years behind them as usual.