Doing their job or working towards fine quotas?
Taken from the Impartial Reporter, 27th March 2008.
Rodney Edwards
e-mail: rodney@rodneyedwards.co.uk
We as individuals are naturally programmed to severely loathe traffic wardens; it’s just the thing to do. It’s Fermanagh’s new bandwagon, and everyone it appears, is jumping on board to have a moan and a growl at the dreaded ‘Red Coats’. Ironically, even if you don’t actually own a vehicle or understand the whole legalities of parking, you feel the need to go and scowl them. Before I started driving, I used to pass the wardens in Enniskillen and quietly and quickly ‘boo’ to myself, before walking away very fast. I don’t know why I did it, but it felt good at the time. This newspaper, my radio show, could easily run on, literally, weeks and weeks of material on the subject – but it all boils down to a couple of much asked questions; who’s to blame? And; does anyone actually understand the system?
You see, some people who receive parking fines are stupid, because a vast majority of them only get them because they couldn’t have been bothered to pay 30p for a parking ticket. Now c’mon, I’m no Sherlock but seriously, it’s a no-brainer. I’m in no way, sticking up for the red coats, like I said, you’re not suppose to like them, but some people – mostly, it looks as if it’s older folk and little boy racers, whom have only themselves to blame and at the end of the day, the red coats are only doing their job. And if I was on their money, I wouldn’t give two hoots about booking a Fiat Punto on a double yellow. But that’s not the point.
I found myself, at the hands of a red coat and its poison pen, only last week. I returned to my car, after my radio show, to find a horrible looking fine attached to my windscreen. It turned out my parking ticket blew upside down on the dashboard when I shut my door earlier that morning, the ticket had three hours left on it but because it has been accidently turned upside down, it wasn’t correctly displayed. And no, I don’t like sticking the ticket to the window because it marks the window and doesn’t stick right half the time. But I am refusing to pay the fine and will be writing to the roads service saying as much.
And a few weeks ago, I parked my car and went over to the ticket machine, a mere 30 seconds away. During that short walk and subsequent transaction, with my back to the car, I met an oncoming traffic warden whom, when I turned around, I found, was actually on way to my car and was gearing up to fine me. It was only on my return to the vehicle, some seconds later, and with a ticket at the ready that the red coat realised this was one chap he wasn’t going to book. I pity those drivers in need. Those with disabilities, those who aren’t as able to manoeuvre as quickly as others, from vehicle to ticket machine to vehicle again. It’s those people that, it would unfortunately appear from past accounts, red coats, seem only too willing to prey on. Shame on you. It’s difficult, really difficult, not to imagine that these red coats aren’t working towards some sort of quota - when you look at the evidence.
Like the ‘Pied Piper of Hamelin’, we townspeople are keen on collectively joining in unison in an attempt to [figuratively] wipe out the red coated ‘rodents’. But it’s the red coats who are trying to eradicate the town of illegitimate parkers. I’d like to say that Enniskillen’s roads and car parks are now clutter free of idiotic drivers who park all over the show, clog up the town and cause major disruption. But it’s not. Enniskillen still has a massive problem in the car parks and on the roads and sooner or later, like the pied piper, we might have to reluctantly call on the urgent help of the red coats to whistle an even stronger tune. But until then of course, and to keep up with the joneses, it’s another boo to the red coats from me.
Rodney Edwards presents the Bigger Breakfast Show 7-10am, Mon-Fri on Vibe FM 105.3FM.