John unhappy with parking fine ‘honeytrap’

The allegation comes from 67-year-old retired firefighter John Davies, of Forth, who says he was caught out by what he describes as deliberately poor signage at Carluke’s Cassels Street Car Park No.2.

He further claims that a traffic warden in the vicinity at the time could easily have intervened to prevent him unwittingly parking illegally, but didn’t. At the time John, a registered carer, was taking the disabled woman he looks after to Carluke for shopping and was displaying a Blue Badge on his windscreen.

This didn’t win him any sympathy from the traffic warden who ‘booked’ him and made him liable for a £60 fine, a sum he will be coughing up reluctantly as he admits the council is legally in the right - but morally in 
the wrong.

He told the Gazette: “As I pulled into the car park, I noticed the warden standing nearby. As all the other spaces were full, I pulled into a vacant space I thought it would be alright to park in as there was no ‘no 
parking’ signage there.

“The warden continued to watch as we left the car park and went to a nearby cafe. When I returned, he’d put a parking ticket on my window.

“He could easily have approached me as I was parking to tell me it was not allowed in that space, but he didn’t. He waited until we left the car park and then gave me a ticket.

“When I saw the ticket, he was still standing nearby and so I approached him and queried the ticket. He wasn’t in the least sympathetic and pointed to the sign at the entrance to the car park, stating parking was limited to marked bays.

“It seems to me that this unmarked space is being used as a deliberate ‘honeytrap’ for unwary drivers like myself. The warden just watching me park there and not intervening with some friendly advice leads me to that conclusion.”