5/20/2005
UK Cameras Generating Big Money From Parking LotsLondon makes GBP 85,000 ticketing those turning into a hardware store parking lot. Walthamstow, UK issues parking tickets from a camera.
Motorists who momentarily stop in a no-parking zone or enter a bus lane to turn into a hardware store parking lot are finding camera tickets in their mailbox weeks later. So far, London officials have made over £85,000 (US $155,000) in revenue from the camera that tickets Sutton, UK residents who turn into the B&Q hardware store parking lot. In the past 11 weeks, 1,707 motorists each received £50 tickets for making this turn.
Drivers in Walthamstow who reach the parking lot are subject to camera ticketing as well. Darren Hounslow tells the Waltham Forest Guardian that he stopped in a temporary no-parking zone for a minute so that a passenger could run into a store and make a photocopy. He neither blocked traffic nor prevented anyone from parking.
"If a warden had come round I would have moved," Hounslow said. "I wasn't obstructing anything, there's nothing dangerous there and there's a bay marked out to park."
Hounslow paid the £40 fine, but officials point out that issuing parking tickets by camera is now a common practice.