David Knight: Being fined at the faffing-about early stages of Aberdeen bus gates has had me simmering every day for three years
Whenever I approach a hooded and disabled roadside speed camera – with 'not in use' on it – I slow down instinctively.
There are a few of them dotted around Aberdeen.
Like Daleks from Dr Who; temporarily rendered harmless, but still menacing.
I suppose it's some kind of reverse psychology going on: our brains are still wired to be wary of speed traps.
You'd think I'd speed up rather than decelerate.
Or maybe I don't really believe the 'not in use' signs and suspect it's some kind of trick.
My journalistic mind always suspects that the authorities are up to something.
My standard starting point is that they are trying to hide important things from the public and so a permanent state of scepticism is healthy.
To challenge things all the time.
After all, there is a lot to process in Aberdeen right now, especially with bus-gate and LEZ (Low Emission Zone) fines popping through letter boxes at an alarming rate.
The Post Office's immediate future as a viable going concern must surely be guaranteed thanks to this lucrative line of mail-delivery business.
I gazed at a P&J colour-coded graphic shape depicting a myriad of current traffic restrictions around Aberdeen, including bus gates and LEZs.
Stretching like a green medieval gauntlet around all the city centre's major streets – choking the life out of them, some might say.
The first salvos in a legal challenge by local businesses against the profit-draining gates are expected in the Court of Session soon.
My beef with council bus gates always has been whether correct processes – democratic and procedural – were followed.
That should interest all citizens.
Meanwhile, the first wave of data on Aberdeen LEZs is being digested on the first anniversary of their introduction.
A hefty £4.5million in LEZ fines dominates the debate, but important health information about reductions in potentially lethal emissions must also be evaluated.
My health was not helped by pondering over not one, but four fines which arrived at my door.
Two were imposed in Aberdeen, but are now a bit old.
I don't bear grudges, but I have been simmering about them every day for three years.
The other two were just a matter of weeks ago.
Not in Aberdeen, but in a galaxy far, far away in England.
Parking fines administered while I was on a mercy mission to visit a sick elderly relative.
Twice for the same offence, in effect: once the night before and again in a dawn swoop by a patrol the next day before I awoke.
They had me bang to rights, but surely not twice overnight?
With my legal magnifying glass to hand I spotted one ticket had recorded me mistakenly as being at another car park half a mile away.
It was enough: a legal technicality, but my challenge in writing was upheld and one fine was quashed on appeal.
Hardly the case of the century, but again shows that challenging things is healthy – and reading small print is always essential.
This recent saga made me think back to that old pair of fines from years before.
I managed to incur two Aberdeen bus-gate fines in the same spot within days of each other; that took a serious level of ineptitude on my part, you might think.
But shell-shocked and bewildered, I returned to the scene of my 'crime' to walk slowly through the bus-gate zone instead to discover where I went wrong.
I still couldn't make sense of it due to shambolic signage which drew much criticism.
I thought of this again after the lawyer leading the legal battle reckoned bus-gate fines would have to be refunded to motorists if he won in court.
However, he was only talking about fines dating back to when the 'experimental' status of the current bus-gate layout was made permanent earlier this year.
But what about me and many others?
I fell foul of what I describe as a 'pre-experiment' experimental stage of this troubled project when a pilot bus-gate was trialled temporarily at one end of Union Street.
It was the embryonic forerunner of what you see today, but also triggered a furore of protest and many fines.
I hate to take issue with the legal expert, but surely as these people were punished during an earlier chaotic faffing-about stage of bus gates – before they became legally binding – they actually have a stronger argument for recompense?
Paying a fine is hardly a matter of life or death, you might say.
But it might be if you were breathing in exhaust emissions in what are now LEZs. Early evidence shows some reductions.
Good news, but we must bear in mind that the smallish Aberdeen LEZs seem harsher and more intense than elsewhere in Scotland.
So it begs a challenging question: have they got the balance right?
David Knight is the long-serving former deputy editor of The Press and Journal
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