Double yellow lines in the UK means that you can’t park there, ever. Fair enough. So how do they paint the lines when cars are in place? They lift the cars (hoist) and paint the lines and then return the car where it was.
The problem is, a hour later the enforcement officer comes by and sees the car and writes a ticket. OK – if the officer knows the lines were just painted, he can put a “voided” ticket on the car so others won’t write one, but the driver is now “alarmed” – they can get really upset over little things in the UK – and for a few seconds think they got a ticket for parking where it was legal to park when the car stopped. Of course drivers are complaining to the local authority and an “urgent inquiry” is underway.
Here’s the problem – what if a traffic warden walks by and sees the car parked on the double yellow lines and doesn’t know they are fresh. Hopefully he does what he should do and write a ticket. After that it up to the driver and the court to sort it out.
The City of Manchester decided to stop the practice of writing voided tickets so drivers wouldn’t be “upset.”
I have another solution-=- why not give the line painters have a dated notice they put on the cars saying something like “We had to lift your car to paint the lines, be sure not to park here in the future or you will get a ticket – have a good day.” Seems like that solves all the problems.
Enforcement staff should get a list of where they are painting lines each day so folks don’t misuse the notices.
JVH
