Against the odds I decided to give NXEC a call to see if they would be willing to cancel my parking ticket. Unbelievably they did but not without telling me that there is and always has been adequate signage in that area (wrong and Keith can prove it) that I had broken the rules (news to me) and that I shouldn't do it again (now I know what the rules are and there are signs to tell me, I won't). It crossed my mind to put him right but I decided against it because clearly he doesn't know the truth, is only repeating what he's been told and most of all, he doesn't give a shit.

It seemed to me that matey boy on the other end of the phone has recently had this conversation more than once. He was very condesending, but to his credit, he was at least polite (as was I). What stikes me was he would tell me why NXEC had opted to cancel these tickets or explain why NXEC had waited for me to contact them for me to learn that the ticket had been cancelled.

NXEC have really fucked up with this issue over where to park Motorcycles. I've recently learnt that the main reason NXEC wanted to move the motorcycle parking away from the area that was ticketed was because they received a very small number of complaints (perhaps as many as 2) from people who park their cars in the north car park. I seems that a very small number of motorcyclists were riding at high speed down the footpath to exit the station from the north car park. Quite rightly NXEC felt this was unsafe. They also pointed out that most people who parked in this area also had to ride on the very wide footpath to aceess the area which they also felt was unsafe.

However, since the ticketing fiasco most people now seem to be parking their bikes in designated area in the south car park. To access this area we now have to cross a very small and restricted part of the footpath which people who parked their car in the sth car park are using continuously. It seems to me that crossing this small footpath on a motorbike is considerably more dangerous to pedestrians that it was when we were using the large wide footpath by the north gate.

In addition to the dangers posed to pedestrians, it's clear that there isn't enough space to acomodate all the motorcyles anymore. Consequently many people are being forced to park their bikes just outside the designated motorcycle parking area and I'll lay odds that NXEC will start ticketing these people in the not too distant future. I'll also lay odds that NXEC will start to charge for motorcycle parking just as soon as they think they can get away with it.

Fuck em.