What does adjacent mean?

There is a contravention of being adjacent to a dropped kerb, one lowered to meet the level of the carriageway so that pedestrians can cross the road, cars can enter a resident's drive and cyclists can access cycle lanes. 

Adjacent is usually interpreted as overhanging and a few inches might, especially in the case of a wide access, be regarded as trivial by an adjudicator.

A PCN has been issued for this car being adjacent to a dropped kerb. It simply isn't.

The tapered (it slopes down) kerb counts for nothing as it isn't at the level of the carriageway. This is a perfectly considerate piece of parking.

Perhaps the parking of the residents of, and visitors to, Barnet is getting better such that traffic wardens have to issue PCNs to cars which are obviously not in contravention to make the ticket targets that are meant to not exist but perhaps do.

A resident should not have to defend themselves from such trickery.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Operation Target MiniBus

There is an Overnight Waiting Ban, about which Mr Mustard has already written, to prevent lorries and minibuses which weigh more than 5 tonnes, from parking in Barnet overnight (except off road of course). Minibuses which weigh more than 5 tonnes and only have 12 passenger seats are not meant to be caught by this ban but get ticketed. The buses are often used for charitable, religious or large family purposes and that would be a good reason to exclude them from enforcement.

The ban usually starts at 6.30pm and runs through the night to 8am. This is what one of the signs that Barnet Council erected many moons ago looks like:

There is no requirement for any yellow lines so drivers must be careful.

Until recently enforcement was only up until 11pm but then there was a wholly unnecessary change to 24 hour enforcement (no it's not about the money, how could you even think such a thing) and Mr Mustard noticed a surge in PCNs for breaching the Overnight Waiting Ban which no-one had ever heard of. As the restriction started at 6.30pm there was ample opportunity for traffic wardens to issue PCNs for this contravention before they went off shift at 11pm.

Mr Mustard decided to send for the statistics on the issue of PCNs for breaching this overnight ban, which are issued under code 55. The answer is revealing.

You can't tell Mr Mustard that there hasn't been a recent management (NSL?) decision to rigorously enforce this contravention, this is ticket targeting by any measure.

Mr Mustard and council parking management don't see eye to eye on this contravention. Both sides are looking forward to their day at the tribunal in order to have an independent adjudicator settle the matter. Place your bets.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Traffic wardens lurking about at night in the borough of Barnet.

Last night Barnet moved from enforcing only during the hours of 7am to 11pm to sending traffic wardens out all night. The motivation is supposedly to 'ensure roads remain safe at night'. Mr Mustard doesn't suppose that there is more than 1% of the traffic at 5am that there is at 5pm and it is probably quite hard to find two moving cars to crash into each other.

On the other hand there will be people who have parked on the following, which are the target zones for traffic wardens, not that they have targets, well not official ones anyway:

Double yellow lines 

Dropped kerbs i.e. driveways (except your own but even then not if there is an operative Single yellow or double yellows) 

Disabled bays

Bus stops

Taxi ranks 

On the footpath or verge or anywhere that isn't the road itself

White zig zags

Now no motorist should be on any of those at 5am if there is a restriction at that time but if there isn't actually a traffic management problem being caused then it looks like nothing more than a further squeeze on the motorist in order to take pressure off the council budget.

You can ruin the council's dastardly plan by always parking 100% legally. The council will, in theory, be delighted about that as 100% compliance is the laughable offical aim of parking enforcement.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard