I DON’T know if you watched the BBC1 documentary Parking Mad a couple of weeks ago.

If not, you missed a treat.

It zoomed in on various eccentric citizens who are making a stand against the way local authorities use parking tickets to milk money from the public.

Now, you may argue that those who don’t want a fine should play by the rules. In principle, I couldn’t agree more.

But I’d like to tell you about an incident three or four Christmases ago.

Full of last-minute panic rather than comfort and joy, I dashed into town seeking presents for a couple of those really tricky menfolk we never know what to buy for.

So uncertain was I about how long it would take me, and so keen to abide by the law, that I paid for four hours in the central car park.

I pulled into the only visible space in a tightlypacked row, and set off on my mission.

Just one hour later – so the council was three hours in profit already – I returned, to find a ticket on the screen.

Nearby was a yellow-jacketed individual – some call them ambassadors, some call them civil enforcement officers, but I say a traffic warden by any other name is still a traffic warden, and they still have the same self-satisfied air.

I chased after him – imagine the comical scene, typical outraged middle-class, middle-aged, wellmeaning female confronting officialdom at its finest – and asked what I’d done.

He told me my wheels had been over the white line dividing one bay from another. I replied that in that case, so had the wheels of every other vehicle in the row, since the gap I’d parked in was barely one car wide.

Only all the rest of the cars had, of course, disappeared by that time, it being the hour when mums pick up children from school.

He knew it was true. After all, he’d been patrolling all day. Yet he retorted that it was no excuse and that I should have left the space empty and found somewhere else to park.

Not even a smidgen of seasonal goodwill.

So angry that I was almost in tears at the injustice – as if I’d voluntarily pay for four hours just to be on the safe side, only to deliberately park illegally – I went along to the council offices where a not unsympathetic receptionist told me I might just as well pay up and shut up for all the good my protests would do me.

I did, because if I’d delayed, the fine could have doubled.

But pardon me if I don’t believe that councils ever see parking as anything other than a nice little earner.

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