UK Curbs Its Enthusiasm for Clamping

Robert Farago
by Robert Farago

In an uncharacteristic gesture of solidarity with beleaguered UK motorists, the British government is drawing up rules that would stop city councils using parking tickets to raise revenue and ease off their clamping campaigns, mate. Christian Today reports that the UK Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly wants city councils abandon revenue targets for meter maids. What's more, these oft-reviled civil servants should only summon the dreaded clamper (how Dickensian is that?) as a last resort for motorists who "persistently break the rules" or fail to pay parking fines. Unfortunately, the proscriptions would only apply to council employees, not the legions of "cowboy clampers" roaming urban areas in the name of the rule-of-law CO2 reduction congestion prevention profit. Edmund King of the RAC motorists' group will be glad to see the back of aggressive city clampers, comparing the practice to a legendary English highwayman. "Clamping is a crude activity which should have been outlawed at the time of Dick Turpin."

Robert Farago
Robert Farago

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 3 comments
  • Glenn126 Glenn126 on Aug 16, 2007

    Clamping was illegal in Scotland when I lived in the UK, because Scottish law (having some common sense to it) concluded that it was "extortion with menaces" (which, IT IS).

  • Nopanegain Nopanegain on Aug 17, 2007

    What is going to happen to Angle Iron Man, the best superhero ever?

  • Nopanegain Nopanegain on Aug 17, 2007

    Angle Grinder Man, my bad...

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