Not me, and not car-related.

A friend of mine was given a fixed penalty by a couple of CPSOs at the weekend.  £75 for chucking a cigarette butt down a drain.  The CPSOs were in a car and appear to have followed him waiting for him to throw it away.  There’s a few discrepancies, however.

They quoted his offence as something like ‘polluting the public waterways’ which is an offence under some section of some law or other which they cited to him.  He explained that he didn’t realise it was an offence, they said they were operating a zero tolerance policy.  Fair enough.

They gave him a ticket.  After they’d left he noticed:

They’d spelt his name wrong, despite asking for spellings.

They’d recorded his postcode incorrectly despite him giving it to them phonetically.

The location is incorrect (the drain was on an intersection but they’ve listed the wrong road of the two).

Most relevant of all perhaps, the offence they’ve ticketed him for is “littering.”  No mention of waterways of the ticket, and littering wasn’t mentioned by the CPSOs once during the entire exchange.  (I believe he told them that he’d done it specifically to avoid littering.)

Any thoughts on this?  Can they really stop someone for one offence and then ticket them for a completely different one?

(Personally I applaud then for cracking down on littering and I hate seeing fag ends all over the place, but there’s absolutely no warning signs anywhere that I’m aware of and nothing to inform anyone that chucking stuff down the drain might incur a fine, so the whole thing sounds like a money-making exercise to me.)

As an aside,

A neighbouring town is operating a similar policy and I know of several people who have been caught out, but they have signs all over the place in the town centre.

Given that it’s not an offence which appears to require photographic/physical evidence – just two PCSOs saying ‘he threw it down the drain’ then unless they don’t have the rest of his address to summons him to court, he may be on sticky ground*, as the PCSO will simply point at him and say – yes, that’s the bloke.

I think coughing up the 75 quid is the correct thing to do, and will help him understand that chucking your tab end in a drain is the same as chucking it in a ditch, in fact it’s probably less harmful chucking it on the pavement in the town centre, as some poor sod will eventually sweep it up.

The lack of signage argument doesn’t wash either. There are no signs up everywhere telling you about all the other stuff you obviously shouldn’t do, like take a dump outside the M&S Food Hall.

*sorry about that, it’s the kebab I dropped earlier.

Given that it’s not an offence which appears to require photographic/physical evidence

Apparently their opening gambit was “you’re on CCTV and…”

*sorry about that, it’s the kebab I dropped earlier.

😆

Given that most CCTV is so blurry as to be useless even for perp identification, I doubt it would be that good for showing someone flicking a tiny object into a drain. Unless ‘enhance’, of course.

If the police are spending their time doing this no wonder they don’t have time to arrest all these dog walkers terrifying the good people of Great Britain.  I swear a miniature poodle looked at me funny the other day from the other side of the road.  I almost filled by pants in fear.  Someone should really do something about it, it’s the law don’t you know.

cctv is not blurry – I have seen real live footage of it and its crystal clear when you see it for real.  full colour and high resolution.  I suspect its often degraded for TV programmes or maybe other areas use rubbish cameras but edi8nburgh ones you can see exactly who is doing what

Wow, that really was a good guess

Very glad they are clamping down on this. Don’t really care if it was in the water course or the ground – both should not be reasonable behaviour. Don’t really care if the motivation is financial or not as long as it changes behaviour. I am concerned that they can’t employ people competent enough to carry out their duties. This friend of yours clearly feels some sort of moral high ground from the event because of the errors made to be telling you about it. He should just feel humiliated and £75 lighter.

I hate littering. Last weekend at the beach a group of men and women, reportedly talking in Romany (not sure I’d know what that would sounds like but I’ve no reason not to believe the person that overheard them is making it up) left the spot they were sitting at with a ring and detritus behind. A full black bag’s worth of drinks cans and other litter and this was only at about 1pm. No effort to clear it up, no shortage of bins to put it in. Fortunately I missed them going as I would have probably struggled to stop myself confronting them and it would not have ended well.A collection of us from neighbouring groups cleaned it up. If, and I stress if, they were from the traveller community (they drove away in a flatbed full of tarmac for what it’s worth) they did little to enhance their community’s image. Whatever, the lack of care some have to the environment and how much people take for granted that others will clear up for them is very sad.

Were they wearing their hats when they issued the notice? It’s not enforceable if they weren’t.

This friend of yours clearly feels some sort of moral high ground from the event because of the errors made to be telling you about it.

Not really, it just came up in conversation and it turned into a short discussion.  His stance was more “if I’d known I couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t have.”  He’s always done it and says he won’t any more so at that level the fine’s done it’s job.  However, “are you aware you can’t do that?” would’ve had the same effect.  Or so he says anyway.

I hate littering.

As do I.

I’m sure their wages would be a lot better spent on nurses or something similar.

But then come to think of it nurses and the like only spend money, using bandages and administering drugs etc, these pair create money via fines I suppose….

I’m sure their wages would be a lot better spent on nurses or something similar.

Not sure I agree. I would imagine their roles are at least expenditure neutral when the fines are taken into account. In addition if long term we spend less on litter picking for those that are too lazy (or ignorant) to do the right thing naturally by educating with a metaphorical stick we’ll have more left for worthy things like nursing. Feels like a win win to me.

if I’d known I couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t have.

Weirdly, I’ve known since being a small child that chucking my used shit onto the pavement or into rivers was something I couldn’t do.

Weirdly, I’ve known since being a small child that chucking my used shit onto the pavement or into rivers was something I couldn’t do.

Agreed, what I suspect he meant was not that he  didn’t know he shouldn’t do it but that there might be a personal consequence if he did. Sadly there are some that never get beyond a toddler mentality and need a personal consequence to discover the moral line.

this troll is weaksauce. mods trying to bump up the clicks/content now? classy

Weirdly, I’ve known since being a small child that chucking my used shit onto the pavement or into rivers was something I couldn’t do.

He didn’t do either of those things.  It was a road drain.

this troll is weaksauce. mods trying to bump up the clicks/content now? classy

The only troll comment here is yours.

It was a road drain

Water from road drains ends up in rivers; where else would it go? It goes through oil interceptors, but I don’t know they would capture other debris.

Processing plants?  I don’t know.

I don’t know.

Probably not the best idea to chuck rubbish into it then eh?