It's confusing having a car in the capital. On the one hand, there's Congestion Charging but on the other, there's really cheap parking bang in centre of town despite London in general having the priciest parking in the world. Then news today says 140,000 more penalty charge notices were issued in the last year, compared with the previous, yet it's now even easier to get them revoked, with 10% more contested parking tickets being cancelled since we last reported on them in December.
London Councils claim that this level of increase in penalty charge notices reflects the success of the first year of the two tier fining scheme, where extra naughty, audacious or dangerous drivers are hit heavier than those who simply overstay their welcome or park in the wrong place because they're a bit dim. Motorist organisations anticipated the number of penalties to rocket under the new system. London Councils say that a mere 1% increase in parking penalties and a 2.3% in penalties overall, including moving ones,"dispels the myth that two-tier parking penalty systems will result in meltdown."
Sure, they may not be in meltdown but it seems a hugely unnecessary administrative burden processing PCN appeals if 70% are being are being ruled in favour of the appellant. That's almost 42,000 incorrectly applied parking tickets and a whole lorryload of disgruntled drivers who really can't work out whether it's worthwhile bloody driving in London in the first place.
Image courtesy of salimfadhley's Flirckstream under the Creative Commons Attribution license.
