Driver Blasts Traffic Wardens Handing Tickets For Parking Illegally Themselves

A video has surfaced online and is getting a lot of attention in the UK, after the driver in question filmed his confrontation with a couple of traffic wardens handing out parking tickets on a high street in Smethwick, West Midlands. The wardens themselves had parked on double yellows, just as they were handing over tickets to people for doing the same.

As Nas Ali sees it, the wardens should be the first to respect the law they’re there to enforce. So he took out his cell phone and recorded evidence of their law-breaking, together with their reaction when being confronted about it. One of them denied that they were parked on double yellows, while the other tried to play it cool.

“You're ticketing people – but you're parked on doubles yourself,” Ali told them, as you can see in the video at the bottom of the page. “Yes, yes you are mate. That's naughty isn't it? That is bang out of order, ticketing people when you're parked on double yellows – don't you think?”

As it turns out, this isn’t exactly bang out of order. Common sense might rule in Ali’s favor, but Sandwell Council says this is the exception that makes the rule. So here’s to hoping you didn’t think the Council made the wardens issue a fine in their own name, as an admission of guilt.

“Although they avoid it wherever possible, sometimes civil enforcement officers do have to park on double yellow lines to enforce the parking rules that benefit local communities and drivers,” a spokesperson tells the Daily Mail in a statement. “They are entitled to in law and sometimes it is the best way of promptly enforcing contraventions that can cause obstruction or safety issues for other road users.”