Local taxi drivers have reached out to Argyll & Bute Council to call for an end to the highway code exemption for Helensburgh’s Audi and BMW drivers.
Even since before the CHORD project transformed our carefully planned town centre into a gridlocked labyrinth, it had long been observed that certain car owners were exempt from traffic bylaws. You won’t find it in any legislative guidelines, of course, but, in Helensburgh, it seems that the more expensive your car the less attention you need to pay to the signs displaying parking restrictions.
However, the town’s taxi drivers are at the end of their tether with the situation and have called for a line to be drawn under it. One veteran Neptune Taxis driver, who gave his name as John. told us that the situation has become intolerable.
“They just park where they bloody want!” John told us. “The shinier the car, the more likely it is they’ll just plonk it in the rank as if it’s an open parking space. They’re the same kind of people who pull up in the bus stop by the station to drop people off, jamming up the whole street when there’s a perfectly accessible, covered drop-off point just ten yards away from them.”
Whilst gathering details for this article, this reporter witnessed an Audi driver pull up and park in the clearly marked station taxi rank. Positioned head on to the drivers waiting to move up to the pickup point by the station exit, this thoughtless individual clearly demonstrated there is an issue here that the council needs to act upon.
