Doncaster Rovers

...and other cars badly parked appear a lot in this Facebook site.  The Mail pointed me at it.

For those of you who don't know where Doncaster is, it's about 15 miles from Pontefract.

For those of you who haven't joined the Facebook revolution yet, here are the sort of pictures that appear:

...or a  not very smartly parked
Smart car.










I'm a little uneasy about pictures of Police Cars though - whoever parked this may be extremely lazy & selfish - or they may be on serious police business - or, in these modern day times maybe even disabled?

As ever, The Mail want to put their slant on things.  They start by asking "Are these Britain's worst drivers?"

No, although they may score badly as Britain's worst parkers.

They then have the following list:

• Facebook page shames dreadful parking in Doncaster
• It invites users to send in pictures of shoddily-placed cars
• Irate drivers often go on site to defend their parking
• Site also has a serious message about the dangers of blocked pavements

to which I say:

• True
• Yes, also true
• Not that I noticed
• Definitely not that I noticed

The Facebook page (entitled "Parking Like A Twat In Doncaster") has about 8500 likes including one from Metro's Car Blog - not bad considering it was only started this April.  It shouldn't be confused with, "Spotted :Parking Like a Twat" which seems to do the same job but more nationally and with added car crashes which is not the point of the exercise.  That site has over 55000 likes and only started last month.  Impressive but I think I'll stick with the original and best.  It does give you the option of having your badly-parked car removed from the site though - which Doncaster's doesn't seem to do.

Parking on the pavement seems to the current issue where I live where we have been treated to this story with this picture:

It comes with the caption, "Cllr Harry Smith ‘ticketing’ a car which is obstructing the pavement, forcing a young mum to push her buggy and child into the road."  Don't know the significance of it being a "young" mum - maybe older mothers have narrower pushchairs.  Cllr Harry Smith is clearly not a Tory councillor or he would be stood pointing at the gap between the car and the wall - or maybe the front of the car and the kerb.

 

Instead, he is placing a leaflet on the car that is designed to look like a parking ticket.

 

It was very fortunate for his argument that a badly-parked car was at the same place as a young mum and a photographer while he had some of those leaflets with him - and I bet the owner of that Mitsubishi is glad this didn't happen in Doncaster - he'd have looked a right twat.

Parking Space Sex

The Telegraph had this story today, but not in its motoring section. It's about how the mayor of the German town of Triberg has "courted controversy by allocating so-called easy parking spaces to women"

Controversial!

It is probably a publicicty stunt - he does try to imply this when interviewed - but it will bring back once more the old arguments about who makes the best driver.

Their motoring section does cover this woman driver though:
Although it is the bloke who was in the passenger seat who is an idiot - albeit a lucky one.

Not Very Smart

This story made me laugh when I read it in my local free-paper, The Wirral Globe.






It follows on from my 2010 post about the spy-cars that Wirral Borough Council are using to bring in revenue/stop illegal and dangerous parking*

*delete as applicable

My opinion of parking enforcement operatives isn't that high - despite eco-friendly ones getting in the papers. The guy in charge of this car managed to open his door as a bus was coming along with the result as seen in these pictures.

The Council were keen to play down the incident - a spokesperson said: "A CCTV vehicle operated by NSL was involved in a minor road traffic collision with a bus whilst carrying out parking enforcement activity on behalf of Wirral Council. Nobody was injured, although both vehicles were damaged and were taken off the road for repair.

A replacement CCTV vehicle has been deployed by NSL so there will be no gap in the provision of parking enforcement services."

The Council are obviously more concerned that they are still getting in revenue rather than looking at what caused this.

Surely, either the Spy-car was parked dangerously or the bus driver was driving too close to parked vehicles. In either case, the Spy-car driver should have looked in his mirror before opening the door - buses are quite big.

The article keeps referring to the Spy-car as a Smart. It is true that the first Spy-cars in use here were Smarts (I refer you back to my 2010 article) but this is a Toyota iQ (or possibly an Aston Martin Cygnet - but if it is a Cygnet then the Council have too much money and I want a refund of my Council Tax)

It doesn't make a lot of difference if it is a Smart or an iQ apart from the fact that I should rename this post to mention traffic wardens not having much in the way of IQ.

Size isn't Everything - Although 18" Sounds Quite Good

Metro (no relation - and I've been using the name longer anyway) published this story today.

This means restricted parking for something much shorter than a Peel P50 in the Tower Hamlets area of London. There should also be a post next to it with a little yellow plate detailing exactly what those restrictions actually are.

I suspect there isn't.

The Mirror also had the story and they got the Council to comment that the line "highlighted the gap between resident and business parking bays."

No it doesn't.

Nobody's going to look down there to see where one area you can't park is separated from another area you can't park.

Anyway - it could have been worse.

This is also from The Mirror...and involves a dead hedgehog.

BBC News had this one...whereby a road was resurfaced and yellow lines were painted around a parked car.

Those examples and a few other entertaining ones can be found by searching Google Images for "yellow lines" where you will also see the excellent work of Banksy: