Enforcers

Figures released by Edinburgh City Council appear to confirm what most of us have known all along, namely that Traffic Wardens, or Enforcers as they grandly like to call themselves these days, are a bunch of nasty, jumped-up, over-zealous, intransigent and officious mini-Hitlers with one agenda, and one agenda only, which is to make as much money for the Council regardless of what’s fair or right or even, dare we say, legal.

The statistics say it all. 57% of motorists who contest their fines succeed in getting them overturned. In other words, nearly six in every ten Parking Tickets handed out should simply not have been handed out in the first place.

Common sense, it would seem, is not a prerequisite for those wishing to take up a career in motorist-baiting.

Take the case of one driver from Musselburgh who received a £60 ticket for parking his van in a disabled parking bay. Nothing wrong with that, you might think, until you consider that the van had a wheelchair lift fixed to its side and a disabled sticker displayed on the windscreen.

If it wasn’t so tragic it might be funny.