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Ming! for the camera
Page 13
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Take a stroll with us through the little side roads of haulage, the diversions and detours, the quirky, the quixotic and the downright strange...
Transport for London (TfL) is not using its full resources when imposing fines on the 40,000 drivers dodging the congestion charge, if a speaker at a recent conference is to be believed.
Cast your minds back to last November when George Dubya Bush sauntered into the UK, surrounded, naturally, by the type of security that makes Alcatraz seem as secure as downtown Baghdad. London was on high alert and TfL was under strict orders to keep a careful eye for any VOSI Vehicle Of Special Interest picked up by the city's 700 congestion cameras. VOSIs include vehicles that have altered, fake or cloned number plates; they are often driven by people involved in criminal activities more serious than avoiding a5 charge.
However, spare a thought for the gentleman ordered out of his people carrier resplendent with false plates by two armed units at machine gunpoint on the day of Bush's visit, barely three minutes after driving into the charging zone. Was this an Al-Qaida suicide bomber? Nope, he was simply trying to avoid Ken Livingstone's toll. "We don't think he has ever evaded again," TfLs head of VOSI intelligence, Yvonne Kerchhoff told the conference.
Still on TfL's tales of the transport related, Kerchhoff bemoaned the "relatively famous DJ-cum-actor" who is happily driving around London with altered plates. His trademark gold fillings are even visible to those scanning the city's processed camera shots each day as he grins his way around the capital. "He's tampered with his vehicle the cameras can just pick out his appearance, due to the amount of gold he is wearing," Kerchhoff complained, adding that the celeb's number plate now reads GOLDIE, which drastically reduces the possibilities of just who has TfL's goat.