Nuxx:Be3342d4-99cc-43dd-ae32-ac63cfd6c0c6@h5g2000yqh.googlegroups.com

Path: number1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!postnews.google.com!h5g2000yqh.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID:  From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: Look, Tom Crispin: How Councils Treat "Plebs" Re Parking Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:42:01 -0700 (PDT) Lines: 94 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 81.156.251.147 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1238197322 14775 127.0.0.1 (27 Mar 2009 23:42:02 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 23:42:02 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: h5g2000yqh.googlegroups.com; posting-host=81.156.251.147; posting-account=7_6kYAkAAABD6HrjM0VxehwvZOKMxm4g User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.7) Gecko/2009021910 Firefox/3.0.7 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729),gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Bytes: 5941 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:691860

Now do you see why I think your "contacts" helped you get off your parking ticket? This poor woman had a *far* better reason to have her ticket cancelled than you, but her appeal fell on deaf ears, because the whole DPE thing's a money-making, anti-motorist scam, and there is nothing *remotely* reasonable, sensible or proportionate about any of it. It appears that informal appeals such as these are automatically dismissed unless there is some "political" reason to give the victim concerned special treatment.

She quite clearly shouldn't have got the ticket in the first place, and the fact that the council refused to cancel the ticket afterwards, much less apologise to the woman, is a disgrace. I'm so fed up with this assault on motorists and this determination to punish them for the slightest, most trivial infractions, whether or not it's in the public interest. I'm also fed up with the liars on here who *still* insist on claiming that there's no war on the motorist, despite reading about this sort of thing themselves all the time. They know perfectly well that there are anti-motorist measures all around us, but it's part of their smug, sick "game" to pretend otherwise, because they seem to think that they'll have a better chance of inflicting all these anti-car measures on us if they pretend that they're nothing of the kind, and that they're really "safety"/"environmental"/"anti- congestion" measures (in reality, of course, anti-motorist measures are frequently the opposite of one or more of those things).

This kind of thing just shows how callous, and utterly undeserving of the support of reasonable people who want to make society better, the motorist-haters really are. Councils are *still* blatantly abusing DPE in order to raise revenue, despite having been clearly told not to by central government; since they can't be trusted not to misuse the powers which have been given to them, those powers should be taken away and handed back to the police. Surely only the vilest and most spiteful car-haters would disagree with that.

Preview: DA Comment:

This story from the Telegraph highlights all of what is wrong with society today along with the cynical and hysterical war against drivers who dare to break the simplest of 'rules'.

A mother who stopped to help her disabled son was spied on by a roaming ANPR camera car with its hidden away traffic wardens hunting for victims and was fined for 'parking' whilst she tried to resuscitate her son.

Drivers are now public enemy number one and the state will stop at nothing to penalise you for having the audacity to use a car. Those responsible in Richmond Council which has a history of car hating measures should be ashamed.

And yes; reading this does make me angry.

The story (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail- transport/5028721/Mother-given-parking-ticket-for-reviving-her- severely-disabled-son.html):

A mother who says she stopped her car on a pavement to revive her profoundly disabled son, was given a =A3100 parking ticket.

Penny Batkin, 40, says that Richmond Council has refused to back down over the fine despite receiving a letter of explanation from her, supported by her GP.

She says she was taking her son, Freddie, 4, to the Shooting Star children's hospice in Hampton when he began gasping for breath and turning blue.

Mrs Batkin, who has three children, was unaware that she had been captured by traffic wardens who were patrolling the area in a CCTV camera car.

Mrs Batkin, from Hampton Wick, near Richmond, south-west London, said her son is unable to walk or talk and has frequent seizures. "I was so furious when I got the letter. I could hear him gasping in the back seat. My immediate reaction was to pull over and deal with him. I had to release him from the rear passenger seat and resuscitate him. I was away from the busy traffic on a wide pavement and would not have restricted anyone walking past."

The council's appeals' officer quoted a section of the Highway Code in a written response to her letter. It related to parking on the pavement and the official insisted it had been unnecessary to park there.

Mrs Batkin said it had been "rude and insulting" to quote the Highway Code in the letter. "I hadn't parked. I had stopped to deal with an emergency situation," she insisted.

Richmond Aid, a disability advice charity, has taken up the case. A spokeswoman said: "It is absolutely shocking to discover that Richmond Council's parking office cannot find it in their hearts to rescind a parking fine incurred by a desperate mother who had no choice if she was to save the life of her child. We are so appalled we struggle to find the words."