CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
"Motorists allowed to park on double yellow lines to help save high streets"
(33 posts)-
Posted 11 years ago #
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Edinburgh is well ahead, it allows motorists to park on double yellow lines all day every day in parts of the city. And those are double yellow lines which appear to have been put there to keep sight lines clear at dangerous junctions. Hatton Place for instance.
Anyway, about the news item, it sounds like clueless, prejudice-driven idiocy that'll make the problem dramatically worse. Fairly typical, then.
Posted 11 years ago # -
When I was driving back from Dorset a couple of weeks ago people were driving on the M6 hard shoulder which was a little unsettling.
Posted 11 years ago # -
There are cars parked on the double yellows on Hanover Street pretty much every lunchtime. The general perception of the lines' meaning seems to have moved from "no parking at any time" to "fine for waiting/loading/popping into the bank". Drivers are so confident of being in the right that they don't even bother to put their "park anywhere" hazard lights on anymore.
Time for a crack down. Do double yellows fall outwith the authority of the parking attendants?
Posted 11 years ago # -
A friend of mine got six tickets for parking his vehicle in a residents' parking area without a permit. He has a permit. The problem was that the permit had a letter O where his registration plate has a number 0. This in spite of the fact that the letter O is not valid in registration plates (at all, I think. Or at least not in places where it could be confused with zero).
You really could not make it up...
Posted 11 years ago # -
A friend of mine had their car towed from their private car park (i.e. not a marked bay on a public street, but part of the grounds attached to their flats) after some ned put the rear window in.
They still had to pay the farsical storage costs etc. to get it back - it came to more than the car was worth (as they'd been on holiday for a fortnight when it happened).
By and large however, parking enforcement makes the city an infinitely more pleasant place to live, work and play. We could consider reinforcing this by suspending the parking wardens (on full pay) for a week, all well publicised in advance, to see how much carnage ensued.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Ah, the Aberystwyth experiment.
"Everyone agrees there are lessons to be learnt. One of them is likely to be that if you give the motoring public what it says it wants, you end up not with the Big Society but a big mess."
Posted 11 years ago # -
Do double yellows fall outwith the authority of the parking attendants?
Nope, it's double parking that they can't touch.
There's a peception amongst the under-walking, over-driving segment of the population that double yellows are there to inconvenience the drivist by making them park further than directly outside where it is they want to go.
The logic that double yellows are there to keep crossing points clear, lines of site clear and narrow streets clear is lost on them.
Posted 11 years ago # -
From link
"
"Look at New Orleans after those floods. You had looting, burning, murders, rapes: we don’t want that sort of thing in Aber. Everybody’s shocked by how bad it’s got already. And this is just losing three traffic wardens.
"
Posted 11 years ago # -
"
A friend of mine got six tickets for parking his vehicle in a residents' parking area without a permit
"
Private tickets (or penalty notices), in Scotland are unenforceable, don't pay, go to court, your friend will win."
A friend of mine had their car towed from their private car park
"
In Scotland? If so this is illegal, so is clamping. Your friend should take them to court.http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/private-parking-tickets
For the sake of clarity, double yellow's etc should be enforced.
Posted 11 years ago # -
A friend of mine had their car towed from their private car park
This is done by (rather, for) the Police if a vehicle is insecure. They employ a local towing / recovery firm if they cannot trace vehicle owners and then you as the car owner are liable for any recovery and storage fees.
Alas, for the owner, it's entirely legal.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Specific bylaws allow the issuing of tickets (and clamping) for parking in marked on-street resident parking bays, and non-payment of fines (much like the DVLA has specific authority to clamp cars in Scotland for non-payment of VED).
What you "can't" clamp for is parking in just general 'private parking' (so a shop car park, or parking linked to flats that isn't specifically 'official' residents parking (i.e. created by the council).
You can issue parking charges for parking on private land; but you cannot refer to them as 'penalty' charges, or 'fines', as you have to have specific authority to levy penalties and fines (as the Council has). You can call it an administrative charge, and it's entirely enforceable (though very very unlikely any private organisation would take the matter to court to recover it if you challenged/didn't pay).
Posted 11 years ago # -
Oh yes. Friend has had nice letter saying you've complained about three tickets and I note there are another three on the system but you don't have to pay any of 'em...
I am strongly in favour of traffic wardens.
The point that I failed to put at the bottom of my post was, what exactly was the parking warden doing issuing 6 tickets for having a O instead of an 0, instead of actually ticketing people who park on double yellows, in loading bays while they buy newspapers/go to the cash machine, etc, etc, etc.
Posted 11 years ago # -
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When's clamping or towing still allowed?There are some cases where clamping or towing is still legal in England, Wales, and Scotland such as for:
- Offences on public roads.
Certificated bailiffs collecting unpaid tax.
The police and local authorities (see Council Parking Ticket Appeals for help), and Government agencies such as DVLA and VOSA where vehicles are un-roadworthy or have not paid their vehicle tax.
Where local byelaws are in place, including some railway station car parks, airport car parks, ports and harbours and river crossings, which can still be contracted out to private companies.As clamping or towing is still possible in these circumstances, and is unlikely to mean the instant disappearance of clamping cowboys, here's a stark warning...
"Posted 11 years ago # -
@WC - Yes, penalty changes are illegal, an administrative charge is allowed, but not allowed to be 'extortionate', ie not more that he 'actual' cost of the administration. Or if in a private car park, not more than the actual cost of what the parking would have otherwise been.
As it is 'civil', it is the driver of the car that is responsible, and not the legal owner, and this is where they get stuck. They have no way of proving 'who' was driving the car at the time. Someone (who shall remain nameless) driving my car got a ticket for apparently parking at the Morrison's down at Telford College for too long. Some parking enforcement company sent me a wee picture of my number plate and demanded cash, nah, nah, not on.
EDIT: I think I used the term *unenforceable* in my first post, not illegal. Is illegal to tow, or clamp however.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I similarly ignored a charge for someone parking my car in Airdrie Aldis. It might have been a similarly nameless person but I couldn't say.
The first hour was free anyway so any subsequent time had to be billed at the same rate. If challenged, which they didn't bother doing, I could prove I was at work.
I think the letters are still on the kitchen notice board.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Slightly OT but I followed the opencyclemap.org link...anyone know why bike shop symbols seem to randomly vanish at varying levels of zoom...and not consistently? it means you can't be sure you're being shown what's actually there...
Posted 11 years ago # -
Hmmm, sounds like a feature.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"
Speaking last month, Lib Dem transport minister Norman Baker said it would be wrong for ministers to interfere with councils' parking policies. However, he confirmed the maximum and minimum fine levels that are set by the government are to be reviewed."
Posted 11 years ago # -
"anyone know why bike shop symbols seem to randomly vanish at varying levels of zoom"
This explanation of how OSM data are updated/rendered maybe partially explains it. There is also a note at the bottom which suggests that the Opencyclemap tiles are updated "on a Thursday or Friday, normally". But that wording suggests to me that it has the potential to be a bit random.
I find that viewing stuff in OSM can be a bit frustrating at times. E.g. cycle parking shows as a blue dot, but doesn't reveal anything about how many spaces; covered, etc.
I guess the way the maps are displayed is continually evolving and should only get better.
The best way to see what is there is to get an account and switch to Edit mode. For example I can see that chdot added Laidback bikes on 14/9/11!
OSM far, far better than Google maps for city mapping though IMO.
Posted 11 years ago # -
@Snowy: "anyone know why bike shop symbols seem to randomly vanish at varying levels of zoom"
The reason is the icons show and hide is due to the collision detection that is happening. If an icon collides with something else then only the first one will be drawn. It's designed to produce a nicer looking map, however doesn't always work as expected.
Here's a map based on OSM that shows whether the cycle parking has the capacity tagged: http://www.itoworld.com/map/223?lon=-3.19787&lat=55.95134&zoom=11
There is also this heat map: http://www.spokeseastkent.org.uk/maps/cycle-parking-heat-map/?zoom=11&lat=55.99713&lon=-3.2154&layers=B00T
If there is a small blue dot, then there's less than ~20 parking spaces for that point, if there's more then the number will be shown.
Posted 11 years ago # -
You don't need to go to edit mode, you could use the browse data overlay to find out info. Though it can be a bit difficult to select data when there's overlapping data.
Posted 11 years ago # -
It's also worth noting that there's regular OpenStreetMap meetups in Scotland's Central Belt: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Scotland#Social_Meetings
Posted 11 years ago # -
@smsm1 thanks for the various explanations.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Quentin Wilson was on PM yesterday talking about this. He really is a bit of a dinosaur; I can picture him sitting there in his double-breasted suit...
He scoffed at the suggestion from the Brake representative that better conditions for walking and cycling should be promoted.
His view was that we have built a world around the car and it's too late to change.
Mind you he didn't think that parking on double yellows was a good idea.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Mind you he didn't think that parking on double yellows was a good idea.
Even from a driver's point of view, parking on double yellow lines is a bad idea as it would obscure lines of sight, cause unnecessary manoeuvres, obstructions and make car crashes more likely.
The only person it benefits is the individual who does it and it is essentially an act of pure selfishness, giving no consideration for the hassle, incovenience and danger it causes to everyone else.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"The only person it benefits is the individual who does it and it is essentially an act of pure selfishness, giving no consideration for the hassle, incovenience and danger it causes to everyone else."
No, no, no - it's for the benefit of the shopkeepers. Everyone knows that healthy communities are based on the ability to drive to the shops - that's why they built big ones on the edge of towns where people go for a nicer communal experience.
Quentin also said there was no chance of getting people to shop by bike.
His friends must buy a lot of washing machines.
Posted 11 years ago # -
The trick to buying washing machines is to get two at once. One in each pannier = a balanced bike.
Posted 11 years ago #
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