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Anorak News | Parking Mad

Parking Mad

by | 2nd, June 2006

For the truly hardy, there is the Olympian sport of travelling on public transport, encompassing fencing (umbrella used to lead the charge onboard an overcrowded Tube train – it’s Agincourt with backpacks), deepwater diving (holding your breath lest you inhale someone’s armpit or, if seated, their crotch), wrestling, sprinting and hurdling.

If Atlanta 1996 can have beach volleyball, London 2012 can have its very modern pentathlon.

But Londoners have even more choice than Tube or trek. They can also take a chance card. This involves stopping their car. And it is a dangerous game.

As the Times reports, there is to be a new parking fine. If things go to plan, it will soon cost you £120 if found guilty of parking your vehicle on a double yellow line.

The paper says that the Association of London Government, which represents the city’s 33 boroughs, is to publish a report recommending a new sliding scale of fines for drivers.

Serous offences will be punished with more expensive fines than less serious offences. All that remains is to decide what is serous and what is not.

Some of the voices on the board argue that illegally stopping your vehicle in a residents’ parking bay is the very apogee of crime.

Until corporal punishment returns, drivers should be charged £120 for their heinous act.

A spokesman for the association says that fines should be an “effective deterrent”. Make them too low and they do not work. He says: “When we surveyed Londoners we found that 75 per cent thought parking enforcement was not strict enough.”

Indeed. Sure, parking fines are pretty much a tax on stopping your car, the congestion charge is a tax on driving your car; and speeding is a tax on getting to your destination on time, but Londoners want more.

If we are to take gold in the London Pentathlon in 2012, we demand the strictest fitness regime possible. The sooner Londoners are made to park in Wigan and walk home, the better…



Posted: 2nd, June 2006 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink