TRAFFIC WARDENS

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Aimee Green did not have change when she parked in the Lion Green car park in Coulsdon, so she paid £1 for her 80p ticket. She visited a hair salon but on returning to her car 15 minutes later she discovered a traffic warden giving her a parking ticket. He claimed she was parking illegally, because she didn't put exactly 80p in the machine. He said because she had paid more than the ticket he didn't know when it was bought, as it had no start time. Miss Green's parking ticket was valid until 2.54pm, yet the warden issued the fine at 1.08pm.

The reason for the fine was given as "parking for longer than the maximum period permitted". The £60 penalty was cancelled by Croydon council before Miss Green paid it. A Croydon council spokesman said, "This parking ticket was clearly issued in error. Anyone paying the correct or surplus fee to park should not receive a parking fine. Ms Green's ticket will be cancelled and we apologise for any inconvenience caused. The parking attendant involved has been spoken to and warned his future performance will be closely monitored to ensure he is fully aware of the council's service delivery expectations." R.I.P. common sense. (Source: Daily Mail, Aug/07)

Bournemouth Council handed out illegal parking tickets to innocent motorists for four years. Hundreds of drivers paid the £40 fines, despite being parked on streets not covered by traffic regulations. Even when the alleged blunder came to light, parking officials in Dorset refused to offer refunds and traffic wardens continued issuing the tickets. Council spokeswoman Jo Evans insisted, "At no time have we instructed parking attendants to issue parking tickets unlawfully." (Source: Daily Mirror, May/06)

Rescue charity workers notched up £300 worth of parking fines as they battled in vain to save a whale found swimming up the River Thames. British Divers Marine Life Rescue chairman Alan Knight said cars were parked by Vauxhall Bridge on meters but in a race against time to get the mammal to safety, volunteers jumped on the rescue barge on a Saturday afternoon and did not return until the evening.

Mr Knight said, "All of our cars have 'marine ambulance' on the side or 'marine medics'... and I would have hoped they would have given us the benefit of the doubt." A Westminster Council spokesman said that while the parking attendants were correct in issuing the tickets, these were extraordinary circumstances and the fines would be waived. (Source: BBC News, Jan/06)

The Government has given local authorities the power to take over enforcement of all parking and some other motoring offences from the police. Instead of returning the proceeds of fines to the Government, which is what the police must do, the councils will be able to keep the cash. It is therefore expected more wardens will be employed, and more fines can be expected to bump up revenue.

Councils may also be able to use camera technology to catch people who illegally drive in bus lanes. Again, fines would be retained. David Gartside, head of traffic for Derby City Council, said, "As a council, we can be more responsive to our customers. It makes a lot of sense in lots of areas. The vast majority of people want police and traffic wardens to fine people when they do something wrong."

The city council employed consultancy firm RTA Associates, at a cost of £83,000, to carry out a study into the likely number of wardens required and the potential income from fines. The council took over responsibility for enforcing on-street pay-and- display parking and residents-only parking schemes in and around Derby city centre in 2001, but the police have retained responsibility for all double yellow lines and no-waiting areas.

Two traffic wardens were sacked because they did not issue enough tickets. Bosses at Bromsgrove Council had demanded they boost their fines average from 14 to 19 a day. One of them was forced to fine a woman of 85 who parked outside a store to pick up her handicapped husband. He was also allegedly told to ticket a Royal Mail van that stopped to pick up post.

Police and paramedic vehicles were also seen as targets but when the men complained, they were sacked. The pair were told to hand out more £30 fines in a council Staff Assessment note. The note read: "The current performance is unacceptable and needs serious and immediate improvement. The target for the next three months is to achieve an average monthly figure of 19 excess charge numbers a day. The target starts today."

Bromsgrove Council recently appointed a new chief executive who warned that some departments were "under-performing" and redundancies might follow. A council spokesman said, "We know we're not giving tickets to everybody who is parking illegally. We want to increase performance." Anyone still believe motorists are not being used as cash cows?

Traffic wardens are being paid extra if they catch more motorists, while competing for a gleaming TROPHY presented each month. The 'champions league' run by council contractor NCP has sparked a ticketing frenzy among staff. Bosses boost the wages of wardens who issue the most penalties by up to a quarter, and the team that does best wins the cup. The incentive scheme among NCP parking attendants working for Westminster City Council in London was branded 'obscene' by motoring campaigners and it fuelled fears that innocent motorists are falling prey to corrupt wardens issuing dud tickets to qualify for their bonuses.

One disgusted NCP parking attendant admitted, “Wardens feel under massive pressure. Some end up issuing dodgy tickets to try and meet the targets. One attendant was fired recently for pretending he had fixed loads of tickets to car windscreens. Later dozens of tickets were found lying inside his locker.” Wardens working for car parking giant NCP in Westminster are deployed from seven area bases. Their basic wage is little more than £6.75 an hour. But those doling out a monthly average of two tickets an hour get a £50 bonus.

That soars to £215 if parking attendants nail three motorists an hour. The attendant who lifted the lid on the incentive scheme works at one of Westminster’s seven traffic warden bases. We are not naming him to protect his job. The warden said, “When we won the cup our base manager promised us an office party. The managers pump you to issue PCNs, penalty charge notices. The more tickets we issue, the more cash we make. But attendants who don’t issue enough are pushed out the door.” The sky-high ticket quotas set by NCP in Westminster are estimated to have netted the council at least £777,200 in one month from the Lexington Street base alone.

It achieved 93.7% of its 16,595 penalty target, winning it the 'Westminster Parking Enforcement Base of the Month' cup. The total number of tickets issued in January 2004 by five of the seven bases was 84,154, worth at least £4,207,700 to the council. Insiders say pressure on wardens to issue more tickets was immediately ratcheted up. Monthly bonuses for wardens in Westminster are based on a grading system from A to G. Those in teams achieving level A get £50 for writing an average of two tickets an hour. This rises to £215 in band G if three tickets an hour are issued.

To qualify for the extra payout wardens must meet criteria for sickness and absence. The ratio of tickets paid promptly by drivers is also considered. Mistakes by wardens when issuing tickets are taken into account, as well as complaints and any disciplinary action. At first, NCP bosses denied knowledge of the bonus scheme or trophy but spokesman Luke Blair later admitted, “There is an incentive for people doing their job properly, fining as many illegally parked cars as they can. The cup is for the base with the best performance.”