CCTV Smart Car Hunting is a new ‘sport’ that has already Grabbed the attention of the BBC’s watchdog program soon after it was invented by a dedicated band of NTBPT motorbike and scooter riders – who have been spurred into action to oppose Westminster City Council’s (WCC) highly controversial and regressive bike parking tax scheme. And, hot news tonight is that the Evening Standard has picked up on it too. The thrills and spills of Smart Car Hunting are often filmed and the latest action can be seen on U-Tube – with one of the first expeditions becoming the subject of a short documentary by a fellow biking blogger at nutsville.com. Video reports of other missions can be found here, here, and here.
Currently, riders and readers who live outside London, Kent or the North West may not have seen these mobile PCN fine churning machines yet… But as each one has raked in an average of £187.667 per year so far, with the BBC reporting that £7.3m came from London in one year, you probably will soon unless their profitability is significantly damaged by those who would a Smart Car hunting go. But to be fair to WCC, they have not yet officially topped the UK league tables of PCN ticket dishing and revenue raising from Smart Car CCTV as Lambeth are top dogs with an impressive 34,000 fines being issued by just three cars in one year which raked in a cool £1,689,460. However, it is of course my duty in the interest of balance to report that deployment of these mobile fine factories is, according to the councilors who support heir use, not about raking in cash at all. Oh no! As Councillor Nigel Haselden, Lambeth’s deputy cabinet member for sustainability and transport has said.
“CCTV enforcement is vital in making sure we can deal with the relatively small number of motorists who insist on ignoring the rules. Parking enforcement is categorically not about raising money, it is about keeping roads safe and clear.”
I have to admit though that I am a tad sceptical about the truth of that claim and find the phrase, my arse, coming to mind. After all, a recent FOI investigation by Big Brother Watch revealed that there are at least 54 CCTV Smart cars patrolling 31 local council areas in Britain. In the interest of balance I should point out that deployment of these surveillance Of course councils at least £8,069,714.67 in fines in the period 1st April 2009 – 31st March 2010. This is equal to £322,788.58 for every council operating a CCTV Smart car, or £187,667.78 per car.
Enthusiasm for the new sport is spreading and becoming all the rage in central London. But I am now reliably informed that interest in the sport is growing throughout the UK biking community. In response to growing interest in the sport, a NoToMob Twitter account has been set up. And, I have just been informed that preparations are in hand to provide a ‘starter pack’ of advice on setting up a new hunting team and how to engage in the sport in an appropriately civilised and legal way.
In the meantime, here is a brief description of the new sport and how it is played:
Teams of plucky bikers draw attention to the whereabouts of mobile CCTV units that cruise around or sneakily park while trying to film minor traffic offences or parking infringements and rake in loads of cash by dishing out thousands of PCN fines.
So, step one in the hunt:
Find a smart car. Once spotted by a hunting team, initial contact is made with the pray by a friendly wave to the car.
Then sooner or later, the chase is on!
Step two:
The second phase of the hunt involves the mobile fine machines being provided with an ‘escort’ of riders who alert all road users to the presence of a CCTV unit that may have not been there before. But please note this well! A key rule of Smart Car Hunting that must not be broken ever is that the pursuit is purely and simply of the car and it’s camera system, and NEVER it’s occupants – who are merely employees of a private contractor who are going about their lawful business – albeit one that involves them breaking parking control regulations whenever they feel like it.
Step three:
The hunt is declared successfully over when the CCTV Smart Car buggers off back to it’s shed.
Alternative interim move before step three:
Occasionally the occupants of the Smart Car may experience a misguided feeling that they are the focus of the chase, and may be being subject to some form of harassment, and to a point where they call for police intervention and a premature end to the hunt. In these situations the Smart Car Hunting team must dismount from their motorcycles or scooters and engage in a polite conversation with the officers called to the scene. During the course of the conversation the hunters must politely explain that they have no interest whatsoever in the occupants but are only interested in escorting the Smart Car and seeing where it goes, and that as cars have no feelings they cannot experience any meaningful sense of harassment.
Experiences of teams engaged in the sport so far shows that the police officers called in these situations are well aware that cars can not feel harassed and are therefore fully prepared to except that no harassment has taken place during the course of the event. I have no idea what impact this new sport may have in due course so all I will say for now is Happy Smart Car Hunting for those who care to, and Tally Ho!
In an extraordinary outburst from Boris Johnson, London’s Mayor, broadcast by BBC news, he makes what NTBPT protesters have called a “threat” to stop motorbike access to bus lanes – unless they stop protesting against Westminster’s highly controversial motorcycle parking charging scheme. This episode has now also been reported by Guardian blogger Dave Hill
The mayor can be clearly seen and heard saying: “Do you want to stay in bus lanes?” To which the rider at the protest says “of course we do” – with the Mayor replying: “Well stop this protest”.
In response, Warren Djanogly, Chairman of the No To Bike Parking Tax group, said: “This would seem like a thinly veiled threat, bordering on blackmail.”
A fuller report of the incident was aired on BBC London News as the headline story for their lunchtime bulletin today.
The bikes in bus lanes measure to which the mayor refers is being run as a trial throughout the whole Red Route network of strategic roads in the capital.
But as it happens and with a bizarre coincidence of timing, the trial version of the measure is due to end with an independent report on the results due for submission to TFL this month.
Up until today, the Mayor had made it clear that the decision to keep bikes in bus lanes would depend entirely on the results of the report which is being conducted by TRL. Sources tell me that the trial results are likely to show that casualties involving cyclists have dropped in bus lanes which are shared with motorcycle and scooter riders. If so, that result alone should make it very difficult for our avid cyclist mayor to turn the clock back and stop motorbike access to bus lanes – as it may well cause a rise in casualties to his fellow riders.
As ever, we will have to wait and see what happens next. But my hope is that the Mayors’ newly focused concerns about the bike parking tax protest will now be focused on discussions about the real cause of that problem, namely the Westminster City Council scheme – which is not only hugely unpopular and has no demonstrable traffic management benefit – but according to the council is now running at a shocking loss. As it also happens I will soon be meeting with the new Westminster City Council Cabinet member who has inherited responsibility for this ill-conceived scheme and will be hoping to find a way forward that is truly sustainable and good for all concerned – including our colourful mayor!
As GMTV warned on their morning news and this slideshow shows, the ‘gathering’ demonstration ride organised by the NTBPT and mentioned in my previous post, did indeed bring traffic to a standstill in central London. You can also see a nice little film of these goings on here. Ironically, these ‘amateur’ protesters took a leaf out of the professionals’ latest book on high-tech road user tax extraction systems – as written by Messrs Gilchrist, Chalkley & Slick-Willy pay-by-phone merchants Verrus – & the ‘gathering’ was triggered by simultaneous multiple text alert. Cripes and gadzooks!
So, within minutes of the text going out, hundreds of peaceful but angered riders suddenly gathered at Trafalgar Square and began riding round it during a lunch time demo.
The most astonishing thing about the event though – apart from the fact that there seems to be nothing that the authorities could do to stop it happening – was to see how incredibly quickly a relatively small number of riders could bring all the roads into and out of Trafalgar Square to a gridlocked halt. As a fellow riders rights champion, BMF Chairman Anna Zee said to me once we’d all arrived at Milbank.“It was incredible to see what a huge impact a relatively small number of riders can have within three minutes of gathering together and starting to ride perfectly legally round a small but critically central roundabout…”
Anyway, once the protesters had made their point of protest about the bike parking tax plan being pushed by Westminster, the riders all moved on in appropriately dignified fashion through Whitehall and Parliament Square and were joined by over a 100 more to rally outside the Tory HQ at Milbank.
A key point for the demo was to encourage the Conservative party leaders and key members to think about the huge damage that one of it’s flagship council’s (Westminster City Council no less) is doing to their reputation by trying to impose a new Stealth Tax on riders of powered two wheelers.
Currently, the word from Tory central office is that they regard this attempt to pioneer an unprecedented extra tax against a key group of vulnerable road users as a ‘Local Matter’. Correspondingly, I have it from the highest levels inside Tory HQ that this unprecedented plan to create a new M/C parking tax and spread it across the UK is something that party leaders are not going to bother about or to consider in a broader context. But I’d add, yet.
In my view, which I have shared with their top transport policy adviser and a couple of Tory MPs who were prepared to listen so far, this could be a very grave mistake unless they think again about a plan to impose an extra new tax on UK riders. Especially as just about all of the million plus motorbike and scooter riders in Britain also just happen to be VOTERS as the RAV campaign is beginning to explain in time for the next election.
It is also crucial for me to point out that it is not just the Tories who are seeming to hide behind the excuse that ‘this is a local issue’ while turning a blind eye to bad or unjustifiable policy decisions to create new revenue streams via ‘motoring’ taxes. After all, the Labour party and Lib Dem central office have also all held back from anything remotely close to condemning this stealth tax for what it is
But sadly, up until now my suggestions and indeed those from others in the motorcycling community have fallen on stony ground. Nevertheless, there is also some very good news for all concerned with treating riders as part of the solution to many congestion problems instead of seeing them just as a target for a bit more ‘motoring’ tax.
I learned late on Friday that the Office of Fair Trading OFT has reconsidered it’s earlier attempt to try and pass the buck for investigation of claims that Westminster have bent or broken rules to ensure trading is done fairly. After a great deal of work on submissions to the OFT by Graham of NTBPT and a couple of tweaks that I added to his latest contact with them their new position looks like this:
“Due to the complexity of the issues you have raised your case has been passed to our Preliminary Investigations Team and has been allocated thirty working days for research and response.”
Well done to all concerned I say – and round 1 to the NTBPT!
I am rarely surprised by the depths that a desperate politician will plunge to, while trying to justify action that stinks. In my experience this often happens when a plan for a government move is being pushed that is nothing more than state backed extortion or highway robbery – and that looks to most law abiding citizens like the acts of a robber baron rather than a servant of the people.
But as you can see by the expression on Cllr Chalkley’s face, even he is struggling to make it look straight as he tries to deny that his council’s latest plan to end ‘free’ parking in London’s West End and throughout Westminster, is just a new way to screw more cash from riders of motorcycles and scooters and motorists.
On the face of it this latest plan by WCC may seem like very bad news. In essence it is to put parking charges up again and end ‘free’ parking on single yellow lines up till midnight! But I think that there is a huge silver lining to this otherwise very dark cloud, and especially for all who have been battling with Westminster over their attempts to make an ‘experimental’ M/C parking tax a permanent fixture.More details at NTBPT. The bottom line here for me is that this latest move is already being seen by the majority of people and businesses in the West End as nothing more than a revenue grabbing move that will do a great deal more harm to all concerned than good. In turn, this majority in the heart of the capital will start to see the riders who have taken to the streets to oppose the council’s tax attacks on them less like a nuisance – and more like knights in shinning armour – and no matter whether the steeds they ride are great big motorbikes or nifty scooters.
Another key factor here for me – and IMHO all riders to consider – is that this is NOT A PARTY POLITICAL ISSUE. Westminster are of course a Tory council, but UK councils of every colour including Labour and Lib Dem, have, up until now, followed WCC’s lead in creating ever more sophisticated cash cows for milking motorists in the name of ‘traffic management’ – and supposedly ‘encouraging’ people to walk, cycle or go by privatised ‘public transport’. And, of greatest concern to me, they are also watching with keen interest to see if Westminster can get away with turning all motorcycle and scooter riders into a new source of local revenue by imposing extra road user taxes targeted at them.
Now, back to my views on the latest in Westminster and the pic of Chalkley. My choice of image may seem a tad unfair as this shot may have caught him at a ‘bad’ moment. Even more revealing though (as you can see in the BBC interview linked below) is the long pause as he says “…err…” while composing himself to deliver a statement that looks to me like a bit of a fib! To be frank though, anyone prone to strong feelings about weaselly attempts to justify more tax, under the cover of ecoist faith or ‘traffic management’, may even suggest that what our elected member may be saying about Westminster’s latest plan is a heaving steamer!
Nevertheless, in the sprit of fairness and decency that I try to live and write by, all I can say about whether lies are being told or not is that you will have to make your own mind up. And, you may find this live BBC interview helpful in drawing your own conclusions.
What I will say though is that one of things that troubles me most about this latest plan to end what is commonly described as ‘free’ parking – including by the objectivity seeking BBC – is that PARKING A MOTORCYCLE, SCOOTER OR ANY OTHER PRIVATE MOTOR VEHICLE IS NEVER FREE in Britain. As I and others have said before, all law abiding vehicle owners in the UK pay far more in motoring taxes and duties than most people in the developed world, and vastly more than is ever spent on public highways.
Lastly, I will add that the real reasons why congestion continues to be a great problem in UK towns and cities, and especially Westminster has nothing to do with parking as dear old Danny Chalkley and many others claim. The key causes of ongoing and often worsening congestion is that most local authorities continue cutting the amount of road space that the majority of people are allowed to use. Let battle continue in the fight against robber barons – were ever and who ever they may be and whatever they’re trying to nick, be-it our cash or public highway road space!
Find a smart car. Once spotted by a hunting team, initial contact is made with the pray by a friendly wave to the car.
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