Good luck with appeal against bus gate fine

John Roper's letter about getting a pointless fine for driving through a bus gate even though there wasn't a single bus running that day.Well good luck with that John but I'm afraid it's all about making money, my friend.
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Bus Lane

Common sense won’t come into it.

Back in the 70s I was at my parents house at the time which is on Wordsworth Avenue on Parson Cross. It is one of the longest roads on the largest estate in Sheffield but the actual road isn’t that wide.

I had the firm’s two ton pick-up truck at the time and I thought I’d use my head and not park on the road because I knew it would cause a traffic jam, especially at rush hour, so I park it off road on the verge, which was gravel by the way. Anyway, I get a £6 fine for parking on a grass verge, annually maintained by the highways department. It also said that if I want to contest it I should write to the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police.

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So I write him a lovely, polite letter explaining the reason why I parked there and as for it being a grass verge, it had never had a blade of grass on it since I was born there and was in fact all gravel.

I got a reply saying something like tough, pay the fine or it will be doubled. So I pay the fine and park the truck on the road.

Two days later I get a knock on the door and it’s a police inspector going ballistic at me. He said, can you see the traffic jam you’ve caused through parking that truck there? I said, blame your boss for that, and explained what had happened. So I said sorry but that’s where it’s going to stay, it’s taxed, tested, insured and it’s legally parked. He then says to me that if it’s there tomorrow he will ‘nick’me.

The next day while at work I kept thinking to myself, surely he can’t pinch me if I’m all legal so I call into West Bar Police station and ask the desk sergeant if I’m OK to park there, explaining exactly where. He said yes of course you are and asked why I asked him. When I mentioned the inspector he said oh, you better move it because if he says he’s going to ‘nick’you, he will do.

You couldn’t make it up. So like I say John, good luck because it’s all about the money.

Ted Fowler

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