Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Parking Permits - Can Haringey make life more difficult?
What a lovely council we live in. Run so well, and with such incisive decision making.
Again, Haringey have either failed to send out a parking permit renewal form entirely, or just too late to get it back to them with only ten days left on my existing one, despite me chasing them for this three times over the past three weeks.
Year upon year this happens.
Several years back, two tickets and a clamp were my only “reminder” so I’m rather cautious about letting my permit lapse – every year following this I’ve been down to the “parking shop” or whatever it’s called, right by the Civic Centre in Wood Green.
So today I drove down, V5, Council Tax bill and cash in hand, only to find that the swine are now not open on a Saturday. Since when?!
With less than 10 days to go on the permit now that I have received the “reminder” form this means I really don’t have much option but to take a day off work, or to phone Haringey and give them such a balling that they agree to help. I will opt for the latter option first thing on Monday, but who the hell do these people think they are?
If I didn’t have a job, I probably wouldn’t have a car. If I could renew online, I would, and there wouldn’t be a problem. Indeed this would give a cost saving, because they could then close the parking shop almost entirely even in the week – who actually wants to go there anyway? It’s not like the staff there have ever been very helpful or even courteous even when you are only there to buy parking permits.
If I could renew in person on a Saturday like I could last year, then I’d be OK too, but I cannot do that either, so I’m pretty cross.
Who makes these stupid decisions; why close the parking shop for business on a Saturday without making any alternate provision for the apparent few that have jobs? Come on Haringey, are you complete idiots, or is this a plan to extract yet more money; force our permits to expire so that you can ticket, clamp and tow our vehicles?
I note that the vehicle pound IS open for business today, and that the wardens ARE on patrol. So, Haringey can facilitate the enforcement of lapsed permits, but cannot facilitate the renewal of permits on a weekend. Of course, it’s all stacked in favour of them making another quick buck from us.
If it's too expensive to adminster the scheme without causing this much inconvenience, I wish they'd just scrap it entirely - I can't see that parking permits help do much more than make money for Haringey anyway - certainly I see no advantage to them as a resident.
Not happy, and am going to start phoning people to moan loudly on Monday morning. They’d better come up with a better solution than me taking a day off work – it’s quite easy to calculate the cost of this and I’ll be only too happy to send a bill in for my lost earnings!
Again, Haringey have either failed to send out a parking permit renewal form entirely, or just too late to get it back to them with only ten days left on my existing one, despite me chasing them for this three times over the past three weeks.
Year upon year this happens.
Several years back, two tickets and a clamp were my only “reminder” so I’m rather cautious about letting my permit lapse – every year following this I’ve been down to the “parking shop” or whatever it’s called, right by the Civic Centre in Wood Green.
So today I drove down, V5, Council Tax bill and cash in hand, only to find that the swine are now not open on a Saturday. Since when?!
With less than 10 days to go on the permit now that I have received the “reminder” form this means I really don’t have much option but to take a day off work, or to phone Haringey and give them such a balling that they agree to help. I will opt for the latter option first thing on Monday, but who the hell do these people think they are?
If I didn’t have a job, I probably wouldn’t have a car. If I could renew online, I would, and there wouldn’t be a problem. Indeed this would give a cost saving, because they could then close the parking shop almost entirely even in the week – who actually wants to go there anyway? It’s not like the staff there have ever been very helpful or even courteous even when you are only there to buy parking permits.
If I could renew in person on a Saturday like I could last year, then I’d be OK too, but I cannot do that either, so I’m pretty cross.
Who makes these stupid decisions; why close the parking shop for business on a Saturday without making any alternate provision for the apparent few that have jobs? Come on Haringey, are you complete idiots, or is this a plan to extract yet more money; force our permits to expire so that you can ticket, clamp and tow our vehicles?
I note that the vehicle pound IS open for business today, and that the wardens ARE on patrol. So, Haringey can facilitate the enforcement of lapsed permits, but cannot facilitate the renewal of permits on a weekend. Of course, it’s all stacked in favour of them making another quick buck from us.
If it's too expensive to adminster the scheme without causing this much inconvenience, I wish they'd just scrap it entirely - I can't see that parking permits help do much more than make money for Haringey anyway - certainly I see no advantage to them as a resident.
Not happy, and am going to start phoning people to moan loudly on Monday morning. They’d better come up with a better solution than me taking a day off work – it’s quite easy to calculate the cost of this and I’ll be only too happy to send a bill in for my lost earnings!
Tags for Forum Posts: parking permits
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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BBU: it probably wasn't (personal) spite by the warden that caused that individual not to warn you. The warden would know that the main purpose of Parking – and their employment – is to raise revenue for the council. It is not primarily to provide a service to the public or ease traffic congestion. Nor saving the planet. These are convenient excuses. Cars are useful and are going to be around for a long time yet.
Parking wardens' conduct will vary, but the signage seems almost uniformly intended to obfuscate: and this seems more like policy to me.
Entrapment is an important part of the revenue raising. If parking signs were clear and unambiguous, revenue might fall. But there would also be less ill-will towards the council.
I was grateful to Cllr. Schmitz who recently explained on HoL how the parking rules on Green Lanes operate (each side of the street is treated differently depending on the time of the day). I would not have guessed that and I don't think many people would expect it.
Read the sign? The signs are superb examples of how to conceal meaning.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Really, Clive, what's the point of speculating about the psychological motivation of an unknown traffic warden in an unknown street, at an incident where you were not present?
The simple and straightforward point is that when a parking sign has fallen down and isn't visible, a warden (Civil Enforcement Officer) can and should spot and report it as quickly as possible. Just as they can and should have training to recognise non-compliant parking lines and report these too. (In reply to a councillor's inquiry, I was told that they now do.)
The reporting systems should make this as easy as possible. They can take photos of a car not displaying a valid parking permit. They should snap non-compliant lines & signs.
As you know, we agree about the less than Crystal Mark wording on our parking meters. A few months ago I suggested you have a go at further improving Martin Deutsch's rewrite.
As you also know, Clive, the hours along Green Lanes have to take the bus lanes into account.
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Alan it was BBU who suggested the possibility of "spite" which tends to be a personal attribute. And BBU was at the incident. And the incident was an interesting example of Parking Services conduct. Whether or not the actions complained of could be described as spiteful on this occasion, we can make observations about the thrust and purpose of enforcement in general.
You ask what is the point. The point is that the general characteristics of Haringey's Parking Service are more likely to be as a result of policy rather than whether a particular parking warden got out of the wrong side of bed that morning. These people are employees and are surely aware not only of what their managers expect of them, but also what the organisation is expected to achieve. And that is, as you know, to raise revenue.
Do you accept that the concept of entrapment, while not an explicit council aim, is not far from the thinking and design of signage and other conduct of Parking Services? Is it possible that this mindset lies behind the reluctance of Parking Services to adopt some of the sensible improvements that you have suggested?
I have never parked in Green Lanes because the general impression is that of a Parking Services-laid trap! I am no expert on traffic management and no, I did not appreciate that bus lanes have to be taken into account (as a frequent bus user, I'm glad to hear it). But in my defence I would say that probably not many lay-people would know this or even think about it.
And this is the point: in their already busy lives, ordinary people are expected to have to work out the complex rules the council dreams up for an action that may last only minutes. As a non-football fan, why should I be expected to know, as implied on some parking notices, about match days, for example? (!)
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Green Lanes should be a Red Route. I support the council wholeheartedly in their entrapment of motorists who dare to park there, or on Turnpike Lane for that matter.
It IS entrapment and it IS deliberate. You can't tell me that this could be better administered and that the reason it's not is that it would reduce revenue. Long term residents are the ones who feel victimised here and they are the ones who vote.
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I have never parked in GL, but I'm sure that deliveries to traders need to. But John, the policy of entrapment is not limited to Green Lanes. You only have to look at the wording of signs throughout the Borough. Regardless of the level of prohibition, can we not all agree on the need for clear, unambiguous signs? And also agree that the prime purpose of Parking Services (revenue raising) militates against clarity?
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Ah, so now Haringey has an implicit "Policy of Entrapment". Which means . . . what exactly? That officers and/or councillors set out to operate a parking control system which deceives and ensnares drivers by deliberately misleading them into parking where they can be fined?
Let me suggest reasons why this is absurd.
● There are Council staff with honesty and integrity who'd refuse to operate such a "policy" and/or blow the whistle on it.
● Staff discovered to be setting such a policy are likely to lose their jobs.
● I also suspect it would entail a criminal offence.
There are important issues of public policy involved here. Not least the trust and confidence (or lack of it) which people have in elected councillors and senior officers of local authorities. So it is helpful to make judgements on the basis of what these people say and write and - above all - actually do. Rather than speculate on what they might be thinking; or secret 'policies' they may be following.
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Policy of Entrapment: That officers and/or councillors set out to operate a parking control system which deceives and ensnares drivers by deliberately misleading them into parking where they can be fined?
No, this is a straw man argument.
Alan I think its unlikely that anyone at the council would admit to running a policy of entrapment. Not only for the reasons you've listed, but because it would be too obvious and for the more important reason that any explicit policy of entrapment could not last and generate extra revenue in future.
Much less would there be a formal, explicit stated policy of entrapment. But I think we need to distinguish between de jure policies and the de facto policy, seen and experienced by those in the street.
John is convinced that there is a policy of entrapment (and appears to defend it); many strongly suspect it.
Alan you yourself have campaigned for clearer signage and I would hope your motivation is more than just a liking for clear English for its own sake. And the question remains: why have your good efforts to encourage Parking Services to improve signage, fallen on deaf ears?
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By choosing not to spend money on making permit renewals easier and by choosing not to spend money on sorting out signage there is most definitely an implicit policy of "entrapment" (under UK motoring law). Why on earth are speeding motorists given huge signs that say "speed camera ahead" and the camera is the size of a small council flat and stuck up on a pole at the side of the road painted bright yellow? Because the automobile lobby said that anything else would be "entrapment".
Alan, all your arguments are against an "explicit" policy. Many firms operate an implicit policy of "don't pay out valid staff expense claims" by making them prohibitively onerous to claim. The people in the expenses department are lovely and just doing their job. The policy, should it be explicit would be pretty evil, no?
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Clive : If it's a "straw man argument", why did you raise it?
Although, to be fair, you now pose the question of: "why [my] good efforts to encourage Parking Services to improve signage, [have] fallen on deaf ears?". This is helpful, because open-ended questions are usually more productive than insisting on a preferred answer.
One factor was raised by Martin Deutsch - the need to keep to the Department for Transport (DfT) official wording. Well, if that's the main problem, there's an obvious way forward. Local councils should ask the DfT to consult the Plain English Campaign and then change the regulations.
As you know, I've mentioned other possible factors. Inertia seems to play a big part. As does a tendency to hide behind bureaucratic language.
John :. I don't claim to be an expert on UK motoring law. So I'd be keen to see your links to the legislation or case law which established that :"By choosing not to spend money on making permit renewals easier and by choosing not to spend money on sorting out signage there is most definitely an implicit policy of ''entrapment'."
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I didn't think "the law" dealt with implicit, but then, I am just a computer programmer (and obviously not a very humble one). I was just drawing a parallel with the law on speed cameras. Can you not imagine where they might be put if there were not laws explicitly protecting motorists from them?
I appreciate that you like to establish facts but if I chased the facts with regard to implicit entrapment of motorists I expect I'll get as far as I did with my firm's expenses department all those years ago.
If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck...
If I ran a HoL poll "Do you think the council's parking policy is implicitly designed to entrap honest law abiding motorists while leaving room for certain minority groups to avoid enforcement altogether", I bet the Daily Mail would be very pleased with me.
BTW, I still whole heartedly support this "policy" as the only avenue the council have to reduce vehicle journeys in Haringey. If only we had a congestion charging system to get the rest of the cars that don't stop.
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Alan it was you that raised the straw man argument (misrepresenting what I was saying). You pretended that I claimed that there was an official policy of entrapment and then argued against that false position: classic straw-man stuff! I don't know why you bothered, as no one would ever assert it was explicit policy because it would never happen.
It is as obvious to everyone that there could never be an official entrapment policy, as it is obvious to most of us, throughout the Borough, that there is signage that is so obtuse that people can be forgiven for believing that there does exist an unstated, unofficial, not-explicit policy of entrapment.
Is this thesis so hard to understand? I think not, because you have tried to correct the situation and unfortunately, your good efforts have been disregarded.
While I agree with John that an unofficial policy on entrapment exists, I do not agree that this is a good thing.
I would have thought that clear, unambiguous signage is in everyone's long term interests. I'm afraid the tentative conclusion I draw is that the current confusing signage is left in place because it brings in more money than it would otherwise.
I do not have a problem with fining those who flout parking law that is expressed in clear, simple and unambiguous language. I hope this is clear!
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Making an allegation that there's a "policy of entrapment" - is a serious matter. "Entrapment" involves wilful deception. But if it's not an "official" policy, then what is it? A hidden policy? Rolled-up trouser legs, perhaps? Wink-wink-nudge-nudge-ticket-ticket?
You write that: "People can be forgiven for believing that there does exist an unstated, unofficial, not-explicit policy of entrapment."
Or they might with even more justification be forgiven for believing it had something to do with incompetence, muddle, and an inability to learn from mistakes.
How can painting the wrong parking lines in hundreds of roads in CPZs across Haringey be described as "entrapment" to bring in more money? Or painting the wrong shaped and sized yellow junction-boxes? How is it entrapment to send out parking tickets with incorrect or incomplete information? All these gave hundreds (thousands?) of drivers the opportunity to avoid paying because the lines were unlawful and PCNs unenforceable. And took up enormous amounts of staff time in dealing with appeals. All unnecessary and wasteful. And almost completely avoidable if only they'd just got things right in the first place.
If there really are a bunch of secret conspirators in a dark room somewhere setting out to entrap Haringey drivers, they must be the least successful plotters since Guy Fawkes and his pals.
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