The rule of law is almost impossible to follow when it comes to parking
One minute, you are on a pleasant Sunday excursion to a flower market. The next, you are squinting at a map, worrying about whether you are going to return to an £80 parking ticket.
Britain prides itself on being governed by the rule of law. But the rule of law isn’t just about what’s written down. It’s also about the law being knowable and simple to follow. When it comes to motorists, this requirement is apparently dispensable.
You realise this if you try to find out the answer to a simple question: can I park on this single yellow line on a Sunday? The short answer is that in order to avoid the issuance of a PCN (penalty charge notice), you must determine the restricted hours of the CPZ (controlled parking zone) in which the single yellow line is located.
The CPZ rules, however, vary by borough. So if you are on the boundary of two boroughs, you must find out exactly which borough you are in. Then navigate your way to the relevant council web page entitled “Yellow Lines”. Some yellow lines have their own “restricted hours”, indicated on a sign. In other cases, as the website of Tower Hamlets borough explains: “There are no supplementary signs to indicate the restricted hours, unless these vary from the hours relating to the zone.”
As to what zone I was in, well, Tower Hamlets has four main zones, each of which has its own minizones. Zone A has “six mini-zones”, Zone B and C have “four mini-zones” and Zone D has “two minizones”. Each mini-zone has its own restricted hours.
To work out which one you are in, you can open a map. The map is a PDF file that is almost illegible on a phone and will only display
Tower Hamlets has four main zones, each of which has its own mini-zones
on a setting that’s too zoomed in or too zoomed out. If you can get it to display, you will discover that only the main roads are labelled, and some of the mini-zones are bounded by smaller roads that aren’t indicated on the map.
If there is an upside to this system, it must surely be that it is just as difficult for a traffic warden to work out the rules as it is for any citizen trying to follow them. Perhaps this is why I avoided a ticket that day.