Mind if I use my blog to have a whinge?

Okay so we're down in Glasgow for a few days. Naturally we're using sat-nav to get around, and that got us in trouble today in the city centre as it told us to turn left at a junction which sent us along a bus-only lane. We were then immediately stopped by the police and given a £30 fine.

According to the police officers there were two "clearly displayed" no-left-turn signs on the building opposite the junction, a thick white line down the middle of the road which "indicates that one side of the road is a bus lane", and the lane itself was "marked as a bus lane".

Here's the view from the junction:

p1020991.jpg

After I went back and took that photo, I showed it to the police officers and they immediately accepted that there were no signs on the building opposite, there was no line in the middle of the road, and the bus lane itself wasn't marked in any way. They accepted that the only sign was the blue "bus only" sign facing down the hill, which is almost side-on when seen from the junction.

So presumably the fine could be cancelled?

Wrong! They had been told to come and hand out fines to anyone turning left at that junction, so that's what they had to do. But they both advised me not to pay the fine, saying that it was unlikely to ever go to court, and even if it did then I was likely to win if I used the photograph as evidence.

What a waste of time and police resources!

(There was actually a no-left-turn sign at the junction, but it was high up and further back than usual so I didn't even notice it when I first went back to take that photo. In fact it was so easy to miss that the police didn't even know it was there.)

As you can see from the next photo, other people made the same mistake:

p1020989.jpg

In the 20 minutes or so that we were there, talking to the police and taking photos, I'd estimate that 9 out of every 10 drivers coming out of that junction turned left, came up the hill and got stopped by the police. Pretty clear evidence, I'd say, that the no-left-turn isn't clearly marked and therefore drivers shouldn't be fined for making an honest mistake.

What I'd like to know is: Once the police realised that the junction signage was inadequate, why did they continue to stop people and fine them?

And how many thousands of pounds in fines are being handed out every day on that one stretch of road, when the problem could be fixed simply by putting up a few signs where drivers might actually see them?

Whinge over :-)