Traffic wardens ‘should hand out warnings not tickets’
TRAFFIC wardens should give drivers warnings rather than tickets to end Labour’s ‘war on the motorist’.
Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin has approved guidelines telling enforcement officers to take a more understanding approach.
Councils should be encouraged to remember their responsibility to ‘keep traffic moving’ rather than enforcing steep parking charges, he said.
And they should consider setting out certain situations where a penalty charge notice should not be issued at all.
He told The Daily Telegraph: ‘For example, an enforcement authority may wish to consider issuing a verbal warning rather than a penalty to a driver who has committed a minor contravention and is still with, or returning to, the vehicle before a penalty notice has been served.’
Mr McLoughlin added: ‘This Government has ended Labour’s war on the motorist and encouraging local authorities to take a common-sense approach is part of this.
‘In rejecting Labour’s policy of encouraging higher parking charges and aggressive enforcement the Conservative Party is standing up for hard-working families and
‘War on the motorist’
local shops.’ He spoke as a range of measures was introduced by the Government yesterday to crack down on ‘cowboy’ council parking practices.
New regulations require local authorities in England to allow an extra ten minutes for motorists overstaying in parking bays in council run car-parks and on the street before ticketing them.
However, appeals watchdogs have warned that drivers could still fall foul of the new rules.
Motorists need to be aware that the guidelines do not apply to parking on single or double yellow lines, or in permit bays. Nor does the ten-minute ‘grace’ period apply if a driver has left the car and gone off to find change to buy a ticket, says the Traffic Penalty Tribunal.
And on top of that it only applies to England – not Wales.
Chief adjudicator Caroline Sheppard said: ‘Some drivers may well be confused by the new rules. We don’t want people to think they apply to yellow lines – they don’t.’
She added: ‘Many people may also have formed the impression that you can just jump out of your car in a parking bay and have ten minutes’ grace before you have to put a ticket on the windscreen. If you head off to get change and leave the car unattended, you may well get a ticket.’