WHALE RESCUERS GET £300 OF PARKING FINES
Mean spirited traffic wardens in London handed out over £300 worth of parking violation fines to the volunteers of the British Divers Marine Life Rescue charity that worked throughout the night on Friday and all day Saturday to save the northern bottle-nose whale that was lost in the River Thames.
Traffic wardens are famous for being miserable at the best of times, but Alan Knight, the British Divers Marine Life Rescue chairman, couldn’t believe that the cars clearly marked with stickers identifying them as belonging to rescue workers, would not be given some kind of special consideration on the day.
“I guess they have got a job to do. However, all of our cars have ‘marine ambulance’ on the side or ‘marine medics’… and I would have hoped they would have given us the benefit of the doubt.” Said Knight, adding that the organisation now has a £5000 bill to pay for the failed attempt to rescue the whale which died on Saturday evening while on a rescue boat to deeper waters.
[UPDATE] – All of the rescue workers had the tickets forgiven the following day after this news story broke.
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Wrote the following comment on Jan 23, 2006 at 5:07 am
I’m sure somebody’s going to have a black eye before this is all over.
Wrote the following comment on Jan 23, 2006 at 10:40 am
they oughta take it to court and get the tickets dismissed.
Wrote the following comment on Jan 23, 2006 at 8:06 am
Ridiculous!!
Wrote the following comment on Jan 23, 2006 at 10:52 am
Hey Simon… I thought of you, when I saw the news. That sucks to hear. They have nothing better to do… are they bored…
Lori
Wrote the following comment on Jan 23, 2006 at 4:01 pm
Isn’t that just typical? I hope there’s a huge public outcry and the tickets get dismissed.