TRAFFIC WARDENS 3

A traffic warden slapped tickets on three fire brigade vans as crews battled a blaze. He then told firefighters who complained, “If you’re not gone in 20 minutes I’ll give you another one.” The moron warden also tried to ticket an ambulance waiting to treat a victim of the blaze. One fireman said, “It’s hard to believe someone could be so stupid. He could clearly see smoke billowing from the building and hoses going in, but still wrote out the tickets while we were trying to save lives, he was busy going power mad.”

The warden claimed the vans were breaking tough parking rules in the area but council chiefs admitted he was not only daft but WRONG. A Westminster City Council spokesman said, “Emergency service vehicles are exempt from parking restrictions while on official duties.” The council said it had cancelled the tickets and taken up the issue with NCP, the contractor which controls its parking wardens.

The spokesman said, “We’ve told NCP to remind all attendants that emergency services provide a vital service and are exempt from parking restrictions on official business.” He pledged wardens would “err on the side of caution” when ticketing emergency vehicles in future. NCP said it had launched an full inquiry. Spokesman Ian Kavanagh added, “We regret any inconvenience this has caused to the fire brigade and any embarrassment to Westminster.”

A hearse was given a parking ticket as it waited to go to a funeral. The vehicle had been parked on double yellow lines outside Edinburgh-based funeral directors McKenzie & Millar when it got the £60 fine. Bosses at McKenzie & Miller claimed the hearse had been left unattended for around five minutes on Monday at Great Junction Street, Leith, while preparations were being made to load the coffin into the vehicle. The parking attendant observed that there was no activity around the vehicle, no coffin in the hearse and no activity inside the shop front of the funeral director's, therefore, with that information, it was concluded the hearse was not involved in a funeral.

A motorist parked her vehicle in the city of Nottingham, bought her ticket at the machine and stuck it on her window. She returned a few minutes later, with 40 minutes to go before her parking ticket expired, to find she had been fined - for sticking her ‘pay and display’ ticket on her window upside-down. A council spokesman said the onus is on the driver to make sure that tickets are displayed clearly “so if a ticket is upside down we are within our rights to issue a fine”.

Traffic wardens can park on a city's yellow lines while doctors and nurses have to apply for permits to park outside a patient's home. The ruling comes after an inquiry was held into a parking attendant who parked his car illegally while he dished out £60-worth of penalty tickets. But Liverpool Council discovered a local traffic regulation that lets wardens park where they please in the line of duty. A spokeswoman for parking firm Citilink, said, "We cannot have doctors parking anywhere. They can appeal if it is a genuine emergency."

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