That was the theme of last week’s column for the Ham & High:
I am sick of the good guys being the fall guys. Let me elucidate. At its most simple it’s that honest, good citizens (the good guys) who transgress, for let’s say, staying on a parking meter or pay and display a few minutes over time get a ticket – and pay it.
The bad guys – who perhaps don’t bother to find a meter and park illegally and get a ticket or are involved in a traffic incident or so on – by contrast frequently don’t pay. And the worse they are, the less likely they are to pay – because they’ve not got up-to-date car tax, not got insurance, not got a license, given a fake address, using a stolen car, can’t be traced via the DVLA or because of any of 101 other reasons.
It all amounts to the more honest you are, the more likely you are to be punished if you make a mistake or have a momentary lapse of judgement. Don’t get me wrong – I am a great supporter of proper traffic and parking regulations – and if we park illegally we should be done for it and pay up – but the rules have to be fair and they have to be right. But the zealous – often over-zealous – chasing up of people who are easy to find whilst others can escape completely means we have the opposite of how a fair and just system should work. Good guys get the punishment, bad guys escape. Yes, punish people if they break the rules, but punish people more severely the worse their actions.
Even worse, those who aren’t easy to trace because of the tax and insurance etc dodges are often flouting not just those rules but, on the too rare occasions they are caught, turn out to be wanted for a host of other offences too. Pursuing the habitual wrong-doers would therefore reduce all sorts of misdeeds and clean up a whole range of misdemeanours.
So – you would think – that the authorities would invest in catching the bad guys. But think back through the recent government announcements and ideas – spying on people’s litter bins, mandatory national ID cards, introducing a database of all the phone calls and emails in this country – and they’re all ones that involve putting huge resources into keeping tabs on innocent people…
Lynne Featherstone 
This article came as music to my ear. I was having lots of similar problems with the parking attendants in the L. B. Barnet. I have recently taken up this matter with the Borough authorities. Some of the threatening letters I am receiving from them are totally unbelievable and unacceptable. I have paid up so far for the two of the fines for touching the bus lane while driving and still kept getting very similar letters of offences.