The circumstances that led to the issue of Britain’s very first parking ticket were unfortunate to say the least. It was the morning of Monday September 19, 1960, and a brigade of 40 newly appointed traffic wardens were on their inaugural swoop in Central London when one of them spotted a Ford Popular parked illegally outside a West End hotel.
He wrote out the first of the enforcement notices dreaded by generations of motorists to come, only to discover that the vehicle belonged to Thomas Creighton, a local doctor who had received an emergency call from the hotel asking him to come to the aid of a heart-attack victim. The resulting public outcry saw the doctor let off the £2 fine, but the incident dealt a blow to the reputation of traffic wardens — from which they have never recovered. Just last year, a survey revealed that traffic wardens were the profession most hated by the British public!
But a few years ago I caught a glimpse of a particularly intriguing newspaper title, “Seaside town that banned traffic wardens for a year pleads for them to return after free-for-all chaos”. Here are some clips from that highly entertaining article:
“We would all like to be rid of these most unpopular of pavement pounders, and left free to park wherever we want. But we should be careful what we wish for, judging by a unique social experiment that appears to have gone disastrously wrong in Aberystwyth, West Wales.”
“Until summer 2010 Aberystwyth was a sedate seaside resort and university town of 18,000 people. But since the traffic wardens left the Welsh coastal town of Aberystwyth, residents have told of punch-ups over sought-after spaces, businesses unable to find room to take deliveries, and fears that ambulances and fire engines would be caught in the illegal parking gridlock”
“Ever since traffic wardens hit the streets, there have been countless complaints about the over-zealous and unjust dishing-out of tickets — from stories about a hearse being ticketed during a funeral in Scotland to a traffic warden in the Yorkshire market-town of Skipton slapping a penalty notice on a horse tethered in the street.”
“But last May, thanks to a bureaucratic mix-up between the police and council, Dyfed-Powys Police laid off all traffic wardens in the town. The result was bedlam, lawlessness and even violence, as the town’s inhabitants enjoyed the parking free-for-all that followed.”
“For the last 12 months, citizens have been free to park wherever they please, without fear of prosecution. And any faith in human nature, that people might act responsibly and observe the restrictions anyway, is quickly dispelled by a visit to the town. Everywhere you look there are cars parked where they shouldn’t be: on single yellows, on double yellows, next to bus stops, on pavements, and — most brazenly of all — in just about every disabled parking space available. The local newspaper, Cambrian News, has run a regular ‘Street of Shame’ feature, picturing some of the worst-offending cars!!”
“As the residents of Aberystwyth are discovering, the irony is that when, in theory, you can park anywhere, you can’t in reality find anywhere to park. With allocated loading bays being blocked by family saloons, frustrated delivery drivers are simply stopping their lorries in the middle of the street, with queues of het-up motorists honking in frustration and demanding to know when they will be moving on. The answer seems to be: ‘When it suits me’ — a prevailing philosophy in Aberystwyth these days. It’s dog-eat-dog, with fisticuffs over parking spaces.”
Funny as it may be, this article – in particular my bold underlined bits – highlights a shocking phenomenon best described by the Rabbis in Ethics of the Fathers (3:2) “Pray for the welfare of the government for without the fear of it, men would swallow one another live”.
Jewish tradition through the words of the Rabbis understood all too well the human being. They had no illusions as to the depravity to which men are capable of sinking. As the prophet Chabakkuk cries to Hashem, “Why do you remain silent when a wicked man swallows up one more righteous than he? You have made man as the fish of the sea, like creepy crawlies without a ruler”.
While the article refers to the ‘dog-eat-dog’ syndrome – Irving Bunim writes, “violent men are indeed to be compared to fish. A dog does not eat another dog, nor does a fox eat a fox. One fish, however, will swallow another. And tragically enough, a human being too is capable of feeding on another human being”.
Writing less then twenty years after the holocaust he continues, “Only recently the Nazis brought about the destruction of six million Jews in a most fiendish manner. How painfully they corroborated the Jewish suspicion that ‘civilization’, for the most part, is only skin deep….. cultural development, genteel manner are only a superficial veneer that has not even touched the savage beast lurking beneath”.
The imagery of “men swallowing another alive” furthers the absurd depths of depravity that humans can stoop to. Gulping something down assures very little pleasure; there’s no savouring by the taste buds. So too man will destroy and hurt even where he will derive no tangible benefit.
Furthermore he notes that the Mishnah refers to man as “ish”. The Mishnah does not use the word “Adam” – a primitive person, rather an “ish” – a civilised and cultured person. Even the most intellectual and social advanced human if left unrestrained can behave in the most despicable manage.
This week’s Parshah opens with the instructions to appoint judges to set the rules and policemen to enforce the rules. Without law and order one simply cannot live, let alone park a car! Indeed it’s also one of the Seven Noahide Laws that all of mankind is to keep. Jews and non-Jews alike are to set up courts to run their countries.
May we see speedily in our days the fulfilment of that which we pray for three times a day, “Restore our judges as we had formerly and our advisors as in the beginning”.
Good Shabbos, Yaakov