Penalties

Q: What is the purpose of a traffic warden?

A: A traffic warden polices vehicle parking to ensure no danger to other road users.

....Or at least that would be the way I'd like my council tax money spent.

I have had my share of traffic warden incidents in the past but today nearly exploded my toleratometer in an example of pure power crazed bureaucratic impersonable blinkered idocrasy!

Cycling down Brighton's promenade (which i do know is an "offence" in itself) soaking up the most beautiful morning at mid tide, blazing sunshine, crisp, clear view out to sea for eons of miles when i notice a builders van pulled tight up to the side of the King Alfred building directly underneath scaffolding....Im not renound for the size of my grey matter but id say the builders probably had something to do with the scaffolding job. At that point in the promenade you have probably got 20 meters in breadth. The van maybe took up 2 metres, leaving 18 metres in case 9 fire engines needed to come down side by side!

So what the sodding hell was nobby doing writing out a ticket? How exactly was the vehicle causing an obstruction and to whom? And why was the warden ruining such beauty with his beastly frame and pungent odor of capitalist shenanigans.

It put me in the kind of mood where had i been spotted cycling over the no cycling signs painted on the ground you would have had to be driving to catch me and i would have asked you which one of us was actually committing the worse crime as at least everything that came out of my exhaust pipe was organic!....And thats not a nice conversation to have with anyone