This is a follow on from the below article,,
Arrests After Traffic Warden Beaten Up
Right well this is an interesting post to start with, parking attendants and their job / role to play within society. where do you think they fit? needed or not needed? ridiculous money spinners or essential to keep the flow of traffic and people within city centers? (and when i say that i really mean inner city parking should be restricted to loading and unloading or urgent issues, basically the spin that the government used to introduce parking attendants ha ha.,.,)
Right well lets boil it down to my view first then hopefully some of you will join in.. i feel the general principle was a sounds one for the requirement of parking attendants. keep things moving and not to clutter valuable parking in the inner cities - which seems fair and to a degree i think this still happens, there always seems to be a space eventually in city centers, which is good. however this is contradicted by stories such as that parking attendants are now on commission for cars fined - excuse me? these people get commission for fining other drivers? (stunned) if a person is given more money to fine drivers, say 100 cars a day what will this do to the industry? well it will make them fine everything that kinda breaks the law but could in theory be on the edge of legal and illegal (don't get me wrong we have all tried to squeeze into that space where the tyre is on the line, come on people if its out its out), but i heard of a bus driver receiving one when parked on a BUS STOP! now excuse me, was this based on common sense? or was this based on the desire and requirement to make daily quota? i think the latter. its silly things such as adding commission to an already questionable job that tends to bring in the ludicrous which i thing this has done.
On to the very questionable area of retaliation, how many times do you read stories of drivers retaliating against parking tickets? well i would say every now and then something serious comes along, which is not on. but you CAN understand a little why this happens, sometimes you here stories of parking attendants jumping onto cars to get the ticket on before cars drive off etc or worse hiding round corners till the ticket is printed to give as little time as possible for a driver to become aware of the ticket (these stories bring in a vindictive edge to parking attendants which i do not like). these stories help to build up a negative image for parking attendants which i think could be avoided or should be. has the introduction on commission or ticket based salary increases (of some description) brought with it an increasing lack of common sense or should we be feeling sorry for the parking attendant who have a tough job and probably as tough budgets to reach per day? (it is my understanding that a ticket even one that is over turned for example the bus ticket above, is still ok in the classification of daily budget - thus making the ludicrous ok for the parking attendant) i think - ,,, well i think a bit of both, budgets are harsh things at the best of time, and within councils and governments they are even stricter and tougher, so maybe we should blame these if blame is to be sought, but i do feel the whole issue of incentive based pay is leading to lesser common sense in the methods of parking attendants, but i define it as the councils fault and not the individual parking attendant. am sorry but thats my few....
Bringing it back to the incident below.. well its a tricky one, no one deserves to be beaten up, but i feel there were some intense emotions given the nature of the day for those ticketed. i do feel we could require more information, for example were they fined outside a church? or pub? this makes some difference. if a pub, the car drivers fault if outside a church a lack of commonsense thus the parking attendants fault. although it should never result in a beating..... NEVER...... thus leading me to my conclusion. If there was no commission etc, would this have been an issue? would the parking attendant have gone to the extreme of fining mourners (if indeed it was obvious as to who or where they were) i think not. i hope not. i blame the councils and budgets not the individual attendants. but and it is a strong but, i do feel that the general reasoning of ticketing has now changed - from the above, city flow to money spinning for councils. why introduce commission for car flow? it makes no sense, however it does, if you suggest it brings in X amount of money per financial year for each council. so tut tut councils your fault you should be held responsible for the beating this man received as well as the 2 men in question (i would never condone their actions).. but a court should bring the councils forward for their own involvement...
What do you think? lets hear it.. and if you have any other issues you feel i should include or discuss please feel free to include it or add it.......
NEo
