A letter I sent to a London Council today regarding a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN)

Dear … Council Parking Services team,

Re: Penalty Charge Notice Number …

I hereby challenge the above notice on the grounds that 'there was no contravention' as explained below.

I, Dr. Bijan Riazi-Farzad of …, have been a frequent user of … Road for over ten years. In the last few years, the signage relating to the bus lane restrictions on … Road have been set up in such a way that they vary, indicating, "Use Both Lanes" during times that are outside the restricted period.

Regarding the alleged contravention, even though the times and date indicated on your cameras and videos are on a Monday, and within the normally restricted times, this particular Monday was a Bank Holiday. Given that the signage at the time of the alleged contravention indicated, "Use Both Lanes", it appears that someone had the good sense of deciding that the flow of traffic could be facilitated without significantly affecting bus passengers by changing the restrictions to what it would normally be for a Sunday.

In other words, at the time of the alleged contravention, the signage indicated that the use of the bus lanes was allowed. Since I am not in the habit of collecting evidence as I drive through the streets (such as photographs of the state of variable signs), I am unable to provide direct evidence that I did not contravene the regulations, as required by the PCN letter. Nevertheless, I cite the fact that, on the video footage, it shows three cars using the bus lane within the 24 second period of the video, as corroborative evidence of the truth of my declaration. The other in the long line of cars in the adjacent lane, probably, either wished to continue along that lane or have been conditioned into avoiding bus lanes altogether lest they be falsely accused.

Yours Faithfully,

Dr. Bijan Riazi-Farzad.

Post Script:

Having made my case above, I could have stopped at that point. However, I felt that to do so would be, at worst selfish and, at best, shirking my responsibilities as a citizen. I have, therefore, decided to elaborate on the wider issue in the hope that, rather than providing temporary symptomatic relief for myself, I could, perhaps, initiate a move towards addressing some of the underlying causes of this growing, and potentially catastrophic, societal malaise that I see as “dehumanisation” of citizens by government.

For example, in the current case, the potential positive effects on the community of the rare and intelligent move to facilitate traffic flow on a Bank Holiday through the use of adaptive signage, has probably been completely undermined, and more than compensated for, by the negative effects of the robotic system that has probably mindlessly sent out many PCNs, such as this one.  This means that, sadly, I and many other law-abiding citizens, are now faced with torrents of false allegations so that the council can delude itself into thinking that it is making savings in manpower through automation. I wonder if anyone realises that this erodes (eats into) the contributions that we citizens can make towards our community, both due to the  loss of time and the loss productivity that arises from the ensuing lack of trust in our supposed guardians and the consequent feeling of frustration.

Of course, this is a generous interpretation of what is happening, although there is an increased sense amongst the public that more sinister forces are at play, where fundraising is maximised (“to hell with the human cost”) by creating situations that pray on human vulnerabilities and ultimately lead to the creation of zombie-like conformity in its own image.

I have had to spend my precious time defending such erroneous notices on numerous occasions and, of course, whilst councils are quick to penalise citizens when they make a mistake, they do not compensate citizens when they make mistakes.  When law enforcement becomes a fundraising exercise, it creates an inherent conflict of interest. It could be argued that the more dissatisfied people are, the more likely they are to contravene regulations and, therefore, the more the government is at fault for not providing satisfactory alternatives. As such, if councils were required to give proceeds of fines to charities and were also penalised for the number of fines that they issue, then the focus would move from, “What can we do to increase revenues from fines?” (i.e. encourage people to break the law – or allege that they have, and in the process raise funds from passive people who just pay without challenging) to, “What are the alternative ways in which I can create a harmonious community in which there is mutual respect for each other’s rights to communal facilities so as to eliminate the need for penalising?”

We are all in the same boat and the vast majority of us are paddling hard to move humanity to a more ‘humane’ place for all our children’s futures. If, through the mediation of mindless computers, we begin to needlessly interrupt the rowing actions, we, not only slow down the progress of humanity, but I fear that we will derail humanity onto a path of progressive zombification.  There is increasing evidence that this has already started, fuelled by an obsession with ‘automation’. Computers compute. They have no sense of perspective. With increasing reliance on computers, I fear that we are also losing our sense of perspective. In a court of law, where real people judge real people, the most important factor in making decisions about the guilt of a person is the accused’s ‘intentions’. Computers and the zombies that they effectuate cannot compute ‘intentions’ and, therefore, have the potential to erode the spirit of humanity.

For example, I remember a time when my wife parked in a sparsely populated street and paid for parking and collected her ticket with a view to putting it behind the windscreen when, just at that moment, our two-year old son told her that he needed the toilet there and then. She rushed into a friendly shop opposite and returned two or three minutes later to find a parking attendant writing out a ticket. She showed him her ticket and tried to explain that she had been distracted from putting the parking ticket behind the window by an emergency involving a two-year old and the parking attendant, aloof to the erosive effect of his action on community time and cohesion and unaware of our mutual interconnectedness, simply quoted that she could write to the council to appeal. I did indeed write to the council and explained the situation. I received a response from another automaton stating that the regulations state that tickets must be clearly visible and since this was not the case, the appeal was invalid. In other words, don’t ask councils to think about the real people living in the real world, because in the age of automation, people are not to question the validity of the system leading to the formerly young, enthusiastic, curious and playful children becoming adults for whom “being human does not compute”.

In the past, citizens were only penalised for actions if those actions harmed the community in some way. However, there is now an increasing trend to penalise citizens for using their initiative, in spite of the fact that fixed laws cannot adapt to contingency situations.

By themselves, each of these acts of dehumanisation appear to be too petty to raise, when in fact, the sheer volume of them makes them a major cause for concern and ,therefore, it would be facile to see these Penalty Charge Notices, for example, as mere inconveniences, because if we do not see the signs of the erosion of the spirit of humanity (and I have numerous other personal examples within our society, including in banking, telecoms, insurance, other government organisations, etc.), then no one will put their “finger in the dyke”.

Finally, those of us who were born before the information age lament a time when one’s word was all that was needed for individuals and organisations to establish empowering working relationships. It brings tears to my eyes to think that, in the lauded information age, words on a piece of paper (or on screen) and the data that is collected about you is more important than looking at who you are and what you stand for. In this instance, I am comforted by the adage, “history repeats itself”.

End of Post Script