The NO LOADING SCAM: Bent Nottingham City Council - they're still at it!

Almost every day for the past ten years I've walked down Mapperley Road in Nottingham. Each year at this time of year when the Goose Fair is on in Nottingham I see the same thing happen. Namely cars that have been legally parked on the road are suddenly deemed to be illegally parked because at this time of year Nottingham City Council want the roads kept clear in case there is a major disaster at the Goose Fair and emergency services are unable to get to it quickly. Fair enough you might say.

The problem is that every year for about five days in the entire year I see - like today - dozens of cars being ticketed and towed away. Today I counted 25 with tickets. You can see some of them in the picture above. And even the warden busy at work in his Hi Viz vest. Why? You might ask. Surely all these motorists are stupid or else deliberately law breaking selfish people. Surely, I imagine I can hear you wondering , they must have seen and chosen to ignore the newly appeared signs that spell out the parking restrictions?

The answer is that the signs are never clear. Look at the highway code above. Where does it say NO LOADING means you can't park and leave your car?

These NO LOADING signs do not say NO PARKING! Instead they say

NO LOADING! So what could very well be happening is that innocent motorists assume NO LOADING is referring to commercial vehicles and feel it is safe to park legally. Look at the highway code above - where does it say NO LOADING means NO PARKING. And anyway - what social, domestic and pleasure or commuter driving motorist thinks "Loading" has got anything to do with how he/she uses a car? Loading is surely what van and lorry drivers do in the course of their business...isn't it? Who calls parking loading for heaven' sake?

Look at the collection of NO PARKING signs below. Which two are unclear? Which is the most unclear? Could it be the NO LOADING sign? And yet clarity is the most important aspect in using signs to reduce crime - because it assists compliance with the law. Who would not want to assist compliance? Someone who profits financially from non-compliance perhaps? If you wished to profit from non-compliance which sign would you choose to use?

Assisting compliance with the law is one of the key 25 techniques of situational crime prevention that is clearly being subverted with this deliberately obscure "NO LOADING" punterization.

Today I asked one of the wardens who was busily writing out tickets in his florescent HI-VIZ vest why the signs said NO LOADING instead of no Parking.

He had a Germanic accent (maybe he was German or Polish - I don't know) Honestly I'm not making this up:

"You see ze sign above zee words? Vhat does it mean? Vhat does zit mean?"

[Me] "Look, I know the symbol is a no parking symbol. But with the words NO LOADING underneath it people must be thinking it means no parking for trucks."

"Nine, zee sign means no parking. If you have a licences you must know zee highway code. Zit is yours owns faults. I am just following orders. And zee leaflets behind zee signs says what zis zee law"

[Me] "What do you think would happen if I made some signs myself tonight and put them under your signs? What if MY signs said NO PARKING? Do you think all these cars would be parked here? If this ambiguous signage meant Nottingham City Council was loosing money due to people being confused do you think they would use obvious and clear signs to make sure that stopped happening? Don't you think your employer is using these deliberately confusing signs because it is making money through this legal highway robbery of confused but law abiding people? Do you think these people want to break the law? Doesn't any of this bother you as you fine these poor people money they probably can't afford to throw away?"

"I donts know. Good luck viz zat signs making ja. Have a goods day mine friend."

And there you have it folks. Yet another Bent Society example of authoritarian "error in their favour". So much for Nottingham City Council's punterizing "we're on your side" claptrap!

A Potentially lethal scam

But its worse than that. Because these parking restrictions are brought into being during such occasions to ensure that the roads are kept clear for the emergency services. Clearly Nottingham City Council knows that the signs are confusing because every year (for decades now) they are mass ticketing and then fining people and towing away hundreds of extra cars - at a profit. And the fact the cars are parked there in the first place means that safety is being compromised. ...and it is being compromised not by the poor innocent motorists but by Nottingham City Council's scandalous disingenuous and disgracefully bent punterization of the public with their disingenuous "NO LOADING" signs.

And to make matters worse, even the tiny bits of A4 sized printed paper in polythene hidden behind or tied below the signs don't make it clear that NO LOADING means no parking. In fact the paper notices don't once mention the words parking or park - not even once! With one exception - and I found that on just one lamppost at the very beginning of the street where that single A4 sized paper notice has some text printed on its reverse that does mention parking. And it is this single example that I saw the traffic wardens photographing - as evidence to present to the court (no doubt) that their notices did mention parking. Why don't all the lamppost notices contain that information? If a person read one A4 sized paper notice and saw no mention of parking being forbidden on it then why on Earth would they go and read all the others in case they had extra or different information hidden on their reverse? This behavior by Nottingham City Council clearly indicates that this NO LOADING is a deliberate, bent and potentially lethal scam.

The facts of the matter are clear. It is clear, to anyone who is not an authoritarian, pedantic personality disordered social misfit in a Hi VIZ vest riding a scooter and causing misery by criminalising law abiding good people, that Nottingham City Council is doing its best to make it unclear that the temporary restrictions mean that ordinary people doing ordinary things with their ordinary cars must not park on the road in an ordinary way. How extraordinary! Or not as the potentially dangerous yet money-making case may be.

Postscript - 6 October 2011.

I see today that they've added a new yellow - temporary -metal sign to Mapperley Road that has the words "NO WAITING" under the words "NO LOADING". See: they're still doing it... Parking is not waiting. So innocent people will think this means they can park. If a sign does not say NO PARKING rational normal innocent people will think you can park. NO WAITING implies to a rational brain that the sign means you can't block the road by "waiting". And how might one wait in a car? Does one wait in it by parking it and locking it and walking into their home or walking into the city centre? No! Of course not. One uses one's vehicle to "wait" by sitting in it, perhaps even with the engine running - like a commercial bus, lorry, ice cream van, taxi , van or coach. If you are a magistrate reading this blog let me ask you this telling set of questions: Do you think Nottingham City council staff are so thick they don't know they are confusing the public? Do you think they are unaware that a clear NO PARKING sign would mean less people would park next to it? IF they were losing rather than making money through this public confusion do you think they would use a clear sign to assist compliance?

Dr Society