Seeing round corners - scientific breakthrough in Barnet

 

A US soldier tries to aim an StG 44 with a Krummlauf attachment over a cover. (Creative Commons)

Many motorists think traffic wardens are sniping at them as they appear out of nowhere, issue a PCN and disappear again in less than a minute.

In a recent case brought to him by a local resident with whom Mr Mustard is acquainted the resident in question was expected to see around a corner as the traffic warden clearly had.

The car was parked in this short bay, it has room for 4 average cars but this being Ravenscroft Park, a very desirable address in High Barnet, many residents can afford better than average cars.

Residents parking bay in Ravenscroft Park, EN5

Note that the bay is labelled as being for residents and although the image cuts the end off the bay is about 20m in length. A car within that bay was given a PCN. Although there were signs for roadworks, no suspended bay signage was visible from the bay.

Around the corner to the right is Blenheim Road, a cul-de-sac so unless you are visiting a friend or playing tennis there is no reason to go there.

The sign on the bay looked like this:

Thus it is clear that the bay in question, the suspended bay, is in Blenheim Road not in Ravenscroft Park. The 'side' of 17 Ravenscroft Park is the left as you look at the building i.e. as you would read a sign which was actually in Ravenscroft Park, which is the boundary of Blenheim Rd.

The number of required spaces is 7 (these are imaginary spaces as only pay only bays in Barnet are divided by painted lines) and you can't fit 7 spaces into a 20m parking bay as they are generally held to each be 5 metres long.

The type of parking space which is suspended is a Pay to park space. Here is the sign in the bay from around the corner in Blenheim Road.

and the bay itself

It is abundantly clear that this is the suspended bay, it having the reference 9189 and looking to be about 35m.

One can also see that a suspended bay sign on the pole in that bay could never be seen around the corner in Ravenscroft Park except by a stupidly keen traffic warden (no. 798 who is newish and needs retraining).

This was an obviously invalid PCN. The resident challenged it, not wanting to bother Mr Mustard with such an obvious error which they expected to be cancelled without demur. No such luck. Mr Mustard hasn't seen the challenge that was made as he didn't need to and it was to the effect that an error had been made but it was rejected. This may be evidence that nowadays there isn't a proper consideration of informal challenges, as ones before the Notice to Owner are known, they are all just rejected as apathy rules and most people then give in. Mr Mustard isn't most people.

Mr Mustard doesn't mess about. He emailed a parking manager at 09:36 on Valentine's Day. The message contained just 110 words and a photograph. It included a complaint about the traffic warden, a request for retraining and a suggestion that the council might want to avoid the tribunal and cancel the PCN.

As a measure of the reverence in which Mr Mustard is held by the council, or maybe the opposite, he received a same day reply at 10:04 confirming that the PCN was being cancelled and management would be looking at the CEO's actions.

Everyone in the borough should get the same prompt and high standard investigation of the challenges they make to PCNs.

If the legislation included a penalty to be paid by a council if they blunder like this the quality of PCNs and of the consideration of representations would markedly improve.

Don't take a chance when parking, the traffic warden might be just around the corner, you can't see him, but he can see you, apparently.

The end.