Daylight robbery!

I received not one but three penalty charge notices this week.

They arrived in the same post but it wasn’t obvious what was in each envelope so they sat unopened until yesterday when my wife suggested it might be a good idea to check.

She knows that, as a general rule, I don't open anything that looks 'official' for several months, if at all. (Note: I don’t advise this as a pattern of behaviour.)

On this occasion she was concerned I may have picked up penalty points for exceeding London's ridiculously harsh inner city speed limit (20mph on many roads).

The 'good' news is that the PCNs had nothing to do with speeding. Instead they were for parking offences timed at 11.37, 11.44, and 11.55 on the same day in east London where my daughter lives.

I can't recall exactly what happened but I think I parked, very briefly, in one street (a residential parking area) before moving my car to a neighbouring street where I have parked before without penalty.

I was parked for no more than ten minutes in each location and for most of that time I didn't even leave the car.

OK, I didn’t have a residential parking permit but I wasn't denying a resident a parking space. There were several spaces available and I could have moved at a moment's notice. (It was January 2 so the roads weren’t as busy as normal.)

Nevertheless I have no legal defence which is why I have paid the fines, which were reduced by 50 per cent if paid within 14 days, but they still cost me £195 in total!

What struck me however was the evidence, the small black and white photos that identify very clearly both my car and the registration number.

Yes, I'm bang to rights, but there's no getting around the fact that we live surrounded by CCTV cameras watching our every move.

What does it matter, some might say. If you haven't done anything wrong, there's nothing to fear.

I am reminded that, 15 years ago, we organised a Free Society debate on this very subject. It was prompted by a comment by Dr Eamonn Butler, co-founder of the Adam Smith Institute, who noted the large number of speed cameras between Cambridge (where he lives) and Ely (where he was taking some American visitors to see the famous cathedral).

One of our panellists was the Conservative MP Philip Davies (who lost his seat at the last election but has the consolation of having been knighted a few months earlier).

Like Eamonn I believe the number of CCTV cameras in Britain to be excessive. (I think we have a greater concentration of surveillance cameras per mile, or head of population, than any country in the world.)

Philip, however, took a different view, and although he was heckled for defending their ubiquity, he made a strong case and I was partly won over by his argument that without surveillance cameras many serious crimes would go unsolved.

I remain torn however. There is something about the vast number of CCTV cameras in this country that concerns me, especially when they are used to prosecute or fine people (like me!) for what I consider to be the most innocuous, victim-free, offence.

I take Philip's point that CCTV cameras are there to protect us. But then I look again at those three penalty charge notices and think ...

WTF – daylight robbery!!

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

Motorists will no doubt bear the biggest brunt of tax and penalty revenue after smoking becomes illegal.

When government throws lost tax from smokers to the criminal black market someone will have to pay for that loss of revenue and there is plenty still to get from motorists.

Others to start suffering from rip off taxes and penalties will also be those who like a drink, those who work in the drink industry, and those who like nice food or work in the food industry - aka the "junk food industry."

It's never been about health and the latest ridiculous figure of the alleged cost of smoking to society is evidence of nothing more than the anti smoker industry lies through it's teeth and probably always has.

I no longer believe a thing they say about smoking because of the absolute whoppers they tell now for their own vested political
or monetary interests.