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.
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
