The councils make the law an ass

I once - somewhat naively - argued the case for cameras, believing that the underlying motive was a desire to prevent death and injury. But harsh experience has proved to me that the people who behind this are equipped with nothing more than a cash register.

I was photographed pulling into a carpark, which necessitated crossing a bus lane, and received a penalty notice for driving in a bus lane. I objected, pointing out that I was merely parking and had not travelled any significant distance in the lane. Reality arrived in the form of a standard rejection notice basically setting out how I could spend huge amounts of time and money taking the complaint to appeal (in the knowledge that practically no one would want to do so).

This event has not merely demolished my illusion that cameras having something to do with safety. What can you think of a governing body that penalises citizens who are striving to uphold the rules we have agreed on? It makes a mockery - an ass - of the whole system.

Some clarifications

The Council may run a couple of cars of their own, but the $camera cars actually being "assisted" are run by NSL, a strictly for-profit private business contracted by WCC but not subject to anything as inconvenient as FOI requests.

The NSL vehicles are teeny Smart / IQ cars with small periscopes and minimal signage. Their favourite ploy is to hide behind other vehicles near badly signed junctions and churn out £60 PCNs to confused motorists who turn the wrong way. On Saturday, one of them was caught sitting at a "no right turn" junction that had a temporary sign up directing all traffic to, yes, turn right. Your guess is as good as mine as to which way you're supposed to go to avoid a PCN, if there even was a correct answer.

They DO NOT monitor criminal offences like speeding, mobile phone use, or seatbelt infractions, although their operators will happily lie through their teeth about that. They also regularly abandon their vehicles on double yellows or resident's bays while they go and buy lunch with the proceeds of their muggings.

Since WCC's stated goal is "100% compliance with no penalties", there's really not a lot they can say about bikers alerting traffic to the presence of the $camera cars and directing them at junctions so that they avoid PCNs.

Curiously, the NSL cars don't seem to see is this way, and usually take off like a shot when the bikers arrive to assist them. Initially, the NSL crews blubbed to the rozzers about being assisted: the response was along the lines of "Point out anything illegal and we'll take an interest", followed by a sotto vocce "Good luck, lads, ride safe" to the bikers.

The current NSL tactic is to try to lose their escorts by speeding and jumping red lights - what a sterling contribution to road safety!

Anyway, it's all great fun, and you can follow the larks on twitter at http://twitter.com/NoToMob normally on Wednesdays and Saturdays - sightings of $scamera cars always welcome.