Stop taking London's motorists for a ride

Record numbers of drivers are being fined in the capital. But the real villains are the ministers who are forcing local councils to use the income to make ends meet

Published in the Evening Standard 31 August 2006

Jonathan Freedland

OK, so here’s my one. It was 9am, I had to drop my niece off at school, there was nowhere to park. Either she was going to be late or I would have to leave the car on a yellow line. I dashed in and dashed back, taking 90 seconds, maximum. When I returned, a traffic warden was hunched over his electronic gizmo, punching in the details that would be spat out as a computerized ticket. I pleaded, but to no avail. “I’ve already pressed the button,” the warden shrugged impotently. It was too late.

It’s not a classic parking ticket story, I grant you. It lacks the creepiness of June's night raid in Islington, when residents noticed a ghost squad of attendants slapping notices on cars at 3.54am. Nor does it have the Buster Keatonesque comedy of the Battersea woman who parked legally in a residents’ bay with a valid permit on show – only to find council workmen had painted a yellow line alongside her car, promptly followed by a warden issuing a ticket.

Still, at least my experience has some of the crucial elements known to us all: the pain of arriving just seconds too late, the desperate plea for clemency, the warden’s blank declaration of powerlessness and, above all, that peculiar brand of irritation, if not fury, that lingers for the rest of the day.

Holidaying in the English countryside this summer was a holiday from all this. Sure there was the odd pay-and-display car park by a woodland trail or beach, but yellow lines were a rarity, red routes never seen. I encountered a traffic warden not once.

But now I'm back in London, where simply getting into a car - what with the congestion charge and the cameras ready to pounce if you go too fast, lurch into a bus lane, block a yellow box or stop on a red route - constitutes a financial gamble. Figures out yesterday confirm it: record numbers of drivers are being fined in the capital, with more than six million penalties issued this year.

Last month the government promised to reform the parking rules. It’s a wonder they didn’t do it ages ago. For this is smart populist politics: colleagues tell me the Standard hears more outrage from readers on traffic and parking than on any other topic. We care how the capital’s schools teach our children, how hospitals tend to our sick, of course - but get us on to speed cameras, hidden yellow lines, and broken meters and then you’ll see the blood boiling. I’ve heard people boast of a successful challenge to a ticket with the pride of old game hunters, returning from the bush with the head of a tigress.

Why does it exercise us so? It’s hardly rational, at least not among those who can happily blow £50 or more over lunch or dinner and scarcely feel it. Why do even people with plenty of cash feel such rage over a measly parking fine?

In some cases, the anger is self-directed: we know we could have avoided that ticket if only we’d got back a moment or two earlier, if only we’d read the sign more carefully. It also feels such a waste. But what makes the ire really rise is the sense that attendants are not simply doing their best to keep the streets clear, to ensure traffic flows and pedestrians move, but are driven instead by a positive desire to catch us out, actively wanting to print out as many tickets and tow away as many cars as they can.

This is not paranoid: it is indeed the case that wardens work to targets, set by local authorities who have come to rely on parking fines as a steady source of income. For the capital as a whole fines bring in a staggering £500m, with £130m going to Westminster council alone, three times the cash the borough raises through council tax. If it looks as if there are more wardens around than there used to be, that’s not your imagination: there are. And if you wonder why it always seems easier to spot a parking attendant than a policeman, that might be because police officers cost money – but don’t bring any in.

Nor is this as trivial or Meldrew-ish as it might sound. The danger of a penalty is so great, it can make shopping on the high street too high risk a venture: much safer to go to some out of town store with a car park or, better still, shop online. That’s one more threat to the high street and the small, independent shops that give an area its character. They need their customers to be able to park and pop in, without paying a fine of £50 or £100 for the privilege.

More sensitively, traffic wardens are now predominantly drawn from a single ethnic group, more often than not black Africans. Asking them to be in a constant state of friction with other Londoners is unfair to them - and damaging to the harmony of our city.

Because, obviously, it’s not their fault. Nor is it really the fault of the local councils who pay their wages, even though the luckless parking attendants have become the most visible face of local government – thereby fuelling public hatred for the very concept. Local authorities are not, chiefly, to blame because their over-zealousness over parking is born of the need to raise revenue – and that need is the fault of central government.

Successive administrations have curbed the ability of local councils to raise their own funds, capping rates and closing off all other potential sources. So if the government want to help the pained London motorist, the course is clear. They don’t need to draft national guidelines, however individually welcome they might be. They just need to set councils free to raise their own money, without turning every meter maid into a hated tax collector.

Posted on August 31, 2006 11:36 AM

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