Police are fining and publicly shaming people for bad parking as they launch new operation
Police have launched a crackdown on bad parking in Birmingham with officers targeting some of the worst examples on Soho Road.
Officers launched a 'special operation' on 1 June to bring the hammer of justice down on illegal parking with a total of 37 fixed penalty notices doled out on the day.
They also shared a series of snaps of the cars they'd fined for the bad parking, publicly shaming the motorists who left their cars in such a shocking condition.
Soho Road Police took to social media to say they'd listened to the complaints local residents had about the appalling state of the parking in their area.
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The police said the feedback their officers were getting from those they'd caught parking illegally was that the drivers knew what they were doing was wrong but 'carried on and did it anyway'.
Wanting to bring an end to what they described as a 'culture of bad parking' they accompanied their announcement of the crackdown with plenty of pictures to show just how bad it was.
They even awarded a dubious honour to the day's worst parked car, with the picture showing it straddled across the kerb and footpath where it was pretty much blocking everyone.
Some of the other examples included a car parked entirely on the pavement right on a zebra crossing, while another picture showed a car and a van both entirely perched on the footpath.
Officers said on social media that the drivers of the cars pictured in their thread could expect to be contacted in due course with their fines.
They said: "Illegal parking has a profound effect on other road users, creating dangerous situations & putting lives at risk.
"STOP NOW."
"We listened to your concerns about the awful parking you’ve been suffering across the neighbourhood & we acted. We are so grateful for your feedback and support," Soho Road Police explained in a Twitter thread.
"We start by enforcement against the driver, if they’re around we engage them, explaining what’s wrong and hope that encourages better driving practices in the future as we’ve proven that this culture of bad parking.
"Feedback from all of the drivers we spoke to today was that they knew they were committing offences, but carried on & did it anyway!
"This is yet more evidence that this is a cultural issue of ignoring the rules of the road and cannot be resolved by Encouragement and Education alone."
People who clocked the social media activity said they hoped their own police forces could do something similar.
Joe Harker