Signs don’t look good for me after this! T

HE other day I drove into Huddersfield from the wrong direction, took an old route to work and ended up with a £30 fine. Kirklees notified me by post that I was guilty of a Bus Lane Contravention.

I had turned off the ring-road and driven down Market Street into High Street to get to the multi-storey car park.

But the High Street became bus only earlier this year, a fact that I had failed to notice.

In fact, the whole town is surrounded by bus lanes. By heck, they don’t half change things when you’re not looking!

This was the way I had gone a million times before, especially when I was working at the Examiner office in Ramsden Street.

But these days my trips into town are usually on a Sunday when we access the car park from Queen Street South.

I have worked from home for the last decade and no longer have the intimate subconscious knowledge of one-way systems, bus lanes and parking restrictions that I once had.

My internal sat-nav was still set for 2006.

So I paid the fine and sent a polite email suggesting they make their signs more distinct.

When I went back into town and checked, I saw that the only way they could have made the signs more noticeable was by employing a chap to hit miscreant motorists over the head with them.

A £30 fine just before Christmas. Couldn’t get any worse than that. Could it?

Well, actually, three days later – and before I had received notice of my offence – I had taken exactly the same route when I was dropping off my wife to go shopping.

Whoops. I am now watching the post with trepidation.

But at least I won’t make the same mistake again.

The whole town is surrounded by bus lanes. By heck, they don’t half change things when you’re not looking!