Dear LPG,

Have you ever wondered why there are less of those yellow messages left under the windscreen wipers of cars parked up and down local streets lately? 

I happened to be at my front door one day recently when I noticed a traffic warden about his business.  There was nothing really unusual about that, apart from the fact that he was not preparing many nasty little messages for car windows, and he appeared to be using a bit of hand-held computer wizardry that I had not seen before. 

I have always lived by the principle that the only real way to find anything out is to ask, so I stopped the young man and asked a few questions. 

I learned that each of their operatives now work with an electronic gismo which allows them to send pictures of each vehicle parked in any given Controlled Parking Zone together with information about where and when it was seen, back to the powers that be resulting in more fine information being then sent out by letter.  Apparently this is also the way that they determine which cars need to be clamped and taken to pounds.

I have no doubt that, because traffic wardens are now less likely to be caught in the act of leaving their calling cards on our cars, they suffer less confrontational situations.  I am sure that many drivers can remember times in the past when they could have happily attacked one as they left that yellow plastic notice.

So I suppose that the whole process does not leave us with that bad taste in our mouths as we drive home having received one, which must minimise feelings of road rage and annoyance as we make the journey home with the offending document.   Being a traffic warden must be a hapless job even though someone has to do it.  Perhaps this new electronic system allows us drivers to be a little kinder to them, we have to remember that it is not the nicest job in the world and they need to make a living too.

 CE, Ladywell.

LPG would like to remind readers of the parking related information that CE found for us earlier this year.  Information regarding exactly where and when you can park in Lewisham borough’s CPZ can prove helpful some times. 

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