It pays to read the signs before leaving your car in a carpark or other private land in England: security guards can impose enormous instant fines, and enforce them by immobilizing your car with a wheel clamp.
In response, a British motoring body is inviting nominations for England's most offensive carpark security guard, most of whom work for small companies that specialize in wheel-clamping work.
A clamp, sometimes dubbed a "boot," is a metal device that locks over one wheel of the car, preventing it from rolling freely.
The RAC Foundation said that in one recent case, a nurse's car was clamped twice when she stopped to help an elderly fall victim at a crossing.
The nurse had parked in a pub car park in order to help the elderly lady. On her return found that her car had been clamped.
When she explained what had happened, the clamper and the owner of the pub refused to listen, clamped a second wheel and demanded ?120. The foundation is now running a search for the "worst cowboy clamper" annually.
Last year, this dubious honor went to a clamper who allegedly immobilized a car while the driver was asleep inside, threatened some clamped motorists with large dogs and forced a pregnant woman to walk with her young child to a cash point 3km away.
The RAC Foundation said its files on some of the nastiest guards include clampers who threatened to hold a mother's 3-year-old daughter ransom until she collected the ?60 fee from a bank.
A postman was clamped while delivering a parcel to his customer's front door and a hearse was clamped with a dead body in the back.
Wheel clamping on private land is not allowed in neighboring Scotland, but is permitted in England and Wales, where an authority grants licenses to the clampers. From next February, clamping without a Security Industry Authority license will become an offence.
Edmund King, executive director of the RAC Foundation, said: "There is huge concern amongst many motorists who are often coerced into paying large amounts of money, when they have parked quite innocently. They feel they have no rights and no means of redress."
The foundation promotes motoring interests and works alongside the RAC, a firm that provides breakdown repairs and insurance.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS