Bus lane ticket appeal result

[Martin Cassini]

Letter received from Lambeth: "Thank you for your letter in which you made informal representations about the above Penalty Charge Notice (PCN). I would like to confirm that the PCN has been cancelled. No consideration has been given and no judgement has been made with regard to the merits or otherwise of the alleged contravention."

Below is a copy of my letter which with hindsight I might have softened, but it seems to have had the desired result. It suggests there are people in authority with the wit to exercise discretion.

Ealing Council is abolishing bus lanes because it has finally realised they add to congestion. Bus lanes that operate during rush hour, from 7-10am and 4-7pm make some sense. But how do you justify bus lanes outside rush hour, when there is no rush or bus in sight? My alleged "offence" took place at 10.31, outside rush hour. There is even less reason for all-day bus lanes now that the punitive congestion charge has emptied London of much of its congestion. It's bad enough that different boroughs impose different operating times, but on your very own patch, you have an arbitrary mix of all-day bus lanes, rush-hour-only bus lanes, and 24-hour bus lanes. Could it be a deliberate ploy to confuse, vex and milk drivers? Moreover your inconsistent operating hours interfere with the driver's primary task, which is to watch the road, and get from A-B safely and efficiently. By taking eyes off the road, your inconsistent instructional signage actively interferes with the safety imperative. By restricting road capacity and forcing traffic to queue instead of allowing it to disperse, your policy subverts the environmental imperative. EU directives and international environmental treaty require traffic authorities to take all possible action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So you are in breach. On a technical point, if the spot where my car was snapped is where I think it is, i.e. by the end of the bus lane approaching the roundabout on the south side of Lambeth Bridge, I did what strikes me as the right thing: there were no buses in sight, so I used the empty road space to avoid an unnecessary wait at traffic lights, thereby minimising emissions, unlike your defective policies which maximise them. Do you ever bother to go and look at the diabolical congestion your 24-hour traffic signals cause on the approaches to that roundabout? To my mind, you are failing in your duty of care to our time, health, quality of life and the planet. Or maybe it's all just a cynical exercise in revenue-raising from easy targets? In any event, on grounds of inconsistent, arbitrary operating hours, and an inappropriate, disproportionate penalty for a non-crime, I appeal this ticket.