Mea culpa

Mr Mustard can't quite believe it, he has committed numerous moving traffic contraventions out of the habit we all have of driving on routes we know without paying sufficient attention to signs, which could have changed since yesterday. He woke up 2 weeks ago when he saw a sign, the flying motorbike sign, at the left kerb of the west entrance to Ravensdale Avenue and so he declined to break the law and drive down that road, which is the indicated route to Sainsburys.

Although 88% of motorists are meant to know what the flying motorbike sign signifies, Mr Mustard thinks they don't as otherwise many of the residents of the roads listed in the 1951 Regulations which appear above, would be phoning up the council to tell them that the signs are wrong and prohibit them from driving home. The eastern end of Ravensdale Avenue has the same flying motorbike sign (roundly ignored by all and sundry) 

The blue sign informing motorists of the lack of access to the Sainsbury car park is ineffective as the top sign means you can't drive down this road anyway, not even for access to your own home. Mr Mustard had spotted this sign years ago but simply filed the information away in his head.

Coming back to the other end of the road, the sign has a plate below it, which is intended to indicate any exemptions from the prohibition on all vehicles. The signs at all the roads adjoining the High Rd are the same, like this one:

This plan shows where you cannot enter, marked by a red arrow

 

So what is the problem Mr Mustard hears you ask? The bottom plate is intended to reflect the 1951 Regulations, prohibiting vehicles which weigh more than 2.5tons unladen (which is a lower weight than 2.5 metric tonnes but never mind about that). The problem is that the round statutory sign at the top has already prohibited all motor vehicles so the plate cannot exempt vehicles which weigh more than 2.5T by prohibiting them afresh. The sign which should have been installed is this one

with the 7.5 amended to 2.5 and with an exception plate 'Except for access'.

Here is another example of the sign, chosen to amuse a certain councillor who has probably himself been driving in contravention to his home for many a long year

The plate angle needed correcting in any event

Mr Mustard thought the signs were new, they certainly looked new, but then he rolled back time on street view and found that the signs have been there for at least 9 years.

So who has been driving in contravention past these signs, apart from Mr Mustard?

Every motoring resident of & visitor to & people who have driven down:

Avenue Road

Britannia Road

Derwent Crescent

Finchley Park

Fredericks Place

Friern Watch Avenue

Highwood Avenue

Limes Avenue

Mayfield Avenue

Ravensdale Avenue

Woodside Grove

Woodside Lane

Local ward councillors, if they drive.

Every mobile traffic warden (scooters, cars & vans) because this sign has to be passed in order to access the car park of Solar house

Every visitor who has driven into the Sainsbury car park.

Mr Mustard asked parking management to provide him with the traffic order for the weight limit which they did pretty quickly and then said that the restriction would be reviewed in the light of his enquiry. A nice attempt at mind-reading but the wrong answer. Mr Mustard thinks it is sensible to keep large vehicles on the main roads as far as practicable but even more sensible to put the correct road signs up on the network.

Mr Mustard will now predict that the offending signs will immediately be bagged over and then replaced as soon as new correct ones can be made. No blame will attach to any individual member of staff as this is clearly a historic problem.

As for all of us who have breached any of these prohibitions, time to refresh our memory of traffic signs:

You can read this for free, here.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Finchley (No) Park, N12

Capita unilaterally decide to shrink the North Finchley CPZ.

Mr Mustard's client, let us call her Mystery, has lived at the same address inside the North Finchley CPZ for over 20 years.

You can clearly see that the whole of the road is inside the CPZ (indicated by thin blue & brown lines and yellow signs). The map above is the council's own system that residents can use to look up restrictions before they leave home (but you must obey the actual signs on the ground if different).

Mystery rang the parking number to buy some Visitor Parking Vouchers. Capita told her that she no longer lived inside the CPZ which covered numbers 1-55 and 2-86 only. Mystery lives in a number higher than 86 even or 55 odd. Mystery looked out of the window and saw bays parked on the road all the way to the end. She would no longer be entitled to a parking permit and have nowhere to park except for her own drive.

A Capita employee is saying he is the parking manager. He isn't as Mr Mustard knows who is. He might be Capita's manager for parking matters but that doesn't make him hold an office with the council and residents should not be mislead that they are dealing with the engine driver rather than the oily rag.

Why can't Capita get things rights after all these years? (rhetorical question. Answer, because Barnet means nothing to them except an income stream and as Barnet is a long long way from Coventry so any address is unknown to them).

Why can't Capita look at the client's publicly available on-line mapping system of the entire borough's parking restrictions. Answer: laziness, ignorance, stupidity; please add own suggestion in the comments box.

Capita parking are asking Capita highways why the change has occurred (that was a week ago and no-one has been in contact with Mystery). Surely a query that Mr Mustard can answer in 2 minutes could be answered by Capita within 24 hours?. Mr Mustard will notify the real parking manager and then something will happen pretty quickly.

It seems that the stories about Crapita's spectacular incompetence will never abate.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Update: There are two schedules in a Traffic Management Order.

One sets out the restrictions in the road.
The second sets out which properties can buy permits (as some blocks of flats are not able to).
Mystery's property had been left off the second schedule along with some of her neighbours. This will now be put right.