Eoin Butler: writer, journalist and Mayoman of the Year
Tripping Along The Ledge
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FUCKING BOLLOCKING CUNTING CLAMPER BASTARDS*
I’m pretty sure I know who clamped me this afternoon. He’s an Irish guy in his late forties or early fifties and I believe he spotted me in traffic and followed me to settle a score. This was my third run in with him this month and, at this stage, what he’s doing to me seems pretty close to harassment.
Both of the lorries visible in the background of this picture are illegally parked on double yellow lines and have been left unmolested. My car (yeah, I know, the chicks go crazy for it) has been parked in a loading bay, which it is entitled to be, for two minutes longer than the 30 minute limit and has been clamped while I’m visiting my sister and her child. This loading bay is right outside my sister’s house. The guy clocked me parking it at 1.02pm and either came back or hung around for half an hour and clamped me at 1.34pm. I’d been two minutes longer than I should have been, during which time I’ve inconvenienced absolutely no one. No one uses that loading bay. There are no other vehicles parked – legally or illegally – within 200m.
A bit of background. The first time I bumped into this clamper was about a month ago. I was sitting in my car in the loading bay outside the post office just off Trinity Street. I’d just been in on the Tom Dunne Show, and was about to drive to Dundalk for an interview. This clamper came up and tapped on the window.
“You’ve been there over half an hour”, he says. “We clocked you here at 9.13am it’s now 9.45am.” “Well I’m back now,” I shrugged. The unspoken subtext being so you can fuck off. But I was polite and didn’t fill in the blanks.
But yer man wanted to have a hat. “I know that car,” he says. “You park it around town a fair bit.” I agreed that, yes, I do park my car around town from time to time. “We’ve clamped ya a few times, haven’t we?” he says, with a kind of a sly smile on his face. I conceded that, yes, I had been clamped on more than one occasion and that, while it would be nice to sit around and reminisce, I had other engagements.
Well, I might have been a little bit more blunt than that. But, fuck it, I would presume he’s aware that his is not the most popular profession in the world.
Anyway, the next time I ran into him was about two weeks ago (see comments). I’d only been parked about ten minutes this time, but apparently the loading bay had ceased to be a loading bay at noon and I was out by about five minutes. He’d actually just fitted the clamp. I’d arrived on the scene just too late to stop him and he took obvious pleasure in that.
Well, as they say, we had a full and frank exchange of views. Some dodgy guy on a bike subsequently came along and offered to take the clamp off my car for fifty quid. In retrospect, I really, really wish I’d taken him up on that offer. It would have been nice to see the money go to the more respectable professional.
Today, what happened was that I was just back from that floating retirement home on the Bay of Biscay (whole other story there) and was heading in to have a quick bit of lunch with my sister and her kid. I think he spotted me on the road and followed me to her apartment. To be honest, it’s such an out of the way spot, I’ve frequently parked it there for 24 hours at a time without a problem.
On this occasion, there was absolutely no way I was paying up. I rang the clampers office, but they said that the only complaint mechanism they had was for me to pay the eighty euros up front and then write a letter of complaint to some jumped-up admin gobshite in their complaints section and beg for my own money back. Well, fuck them and fuck their mothers.
I went over to the Bridewell and told them I was being harassed, that this was extortion and I wasn’t paying up. Well, I’ve dealt with the guards enough times to know what kind of a response I could expect. But the guy did at least manage to spring one dick-ish surprise before refusing to help. He said that, since I was visiting my sister and not delivering goods, I wasn’t even entitled to park in the loading bay in the first place.
Well, if that’s the law, it’s news to me. I pay for commercial tags so I can park in loading bays. Anyway, I told the guy I’d brought my niece a gift and that’s I was there to unload. But he just reverted to the standard garda line that there “was absolutely nothing he could do to help me”.
Coming from this guy, I actually believed it. Kind of a redundant statement there, Seamus. Ah Jesus, I’m too angry right now to know what I’m going to do. But this definitely means is war.
August 31st, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Sucks dude. Clampers are fucking arseholes. Welcome back anyway!
August 31st, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Fuck them and fuck their mothers… Jesus Butler, you fairly mellowed out on that cruise.
I suggest pay the fine and then have some local skangers on standby to fire rocks at the clampers when they arrive to take it off. Ten or fifteen quid should do it.
August 31st, 2009 at 4:02 pm
That’s ridiculous! You’re driving a van aren’t u? I think an elaborate pay back is the only way to go…perchance does he have a daughter debs age or above…preferably living at home…
August 31st, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Woah, I’m definitely not going to do anything to the guy’s family. Lets not lose the run of ourselves here.
I’m also not going to bribe delinquint youths to throw rocks at my own car. Now bribing them to throw eggs/bottles of urine/lumps of excrement on the hand……
August 31st, 2009 at 5:41 pm
@ Butler – Re: “Woah, I’m definitely not going to do anything to the guy’s family. Lets not lose the run of ourselves here…”
Not to be a pedant here, you don’t think fuck them and their mothers kind of crossed that line already?
August 31st, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Ah, it’s only an expression…!
August 31st, 2009 at 9:09 pm
How can you get commercial tags for that oh so sweet machine in the first place?
August 31st, 2009 at 9:37 pm
We used to use it for delivering Mongrel. Kept the tags. But there are stories about that car, I kid you not Brian!
September 1st, 2009 at 9:15 am
Next time you see him you should tell what the re-borning woman said to freak him out/scare him. Then tell us! Please, tell us.
September 1st, 2009 at 9:38 am
Did you pee on it??
September 1st, 2009 at 11:25 am
Dunno if you saw this…
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0415/1224244720715.html
September 1st, 2009 at 11:57 am
@ Leeona – no, cos I’m refusing to pay to get it unclamped.
@ Jenny – I’m not appealing. You have to appeal to the clampers themselves. So that’s kind of pointless.
September 1st, 2009 at 12:23 pm
have a friend who let a little air outta his tire, then through the clamp into his boot and kept it for a while!!
September 1st, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Do you think maybe you have become dizzy with success off the back of your last brushes with the law?…delusional perhaps?
September 1st, 2009 at 2:35 pm
That is an absolute pain in the bollox. You should try purchase a clamp of your own. Wait til they’re about to unclamp your car and have someone you know clamp theirs and run off with their declamping equipment.
September 1st, 2009 at 4:59 pm
but with the rule bending being discretionary (and if they are indeed gunning for you) then they have no such intention. you are giving them a legally legitimate excuse by going over the 30 min time limit?
I wouldn’t take it personally either these companies get a commission for each clamp (or is that the case anymore?) Sounds to me like you’re easy pickings, sit around for 31 minutes. You don’t seem to complain to them much, bet you don’t even call Joe Duffy
Then again my opinions are coloured by living in a country where the cops march you to an ATM to pay a fine after catching you sleep-walk pissing in the street, tends to make you think twice about expecting random leniency.
Hey maybe they’re Steve Appelton fans
September 1st, 2009 at 9:38 pm
@ Denise – does that work??
@ WN – oh no doubt, no doubt
@ Chris – okay, I think I’d need to hire the A-Team to make that plan come together!
@ Conal – yeah but this is Ireland, doesn’t the constitution say somethign about it citizens only having to obey the spirit rather than the letter of the law?? Well okay, it probably doesn’t…
September 1st, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Gettin the a-team involvement not that bad an idea actually!
September 2nd, 2009 at 2:50 am
Mr Butler is correct, Bunracht na hEireann, Article 57, subsection 35 clearly states –
Ahh sure what harm?
September 3rd, 2009 at 8:04 pm
My mate Podge was getting followed around Dublin by the fuckers too. They obviously had him marked as easy meat, cos his van was quite recognisable and he was always too hungover to pick it up in time from whatever shitty carpark behind Whelans it was left in.
In the end, after multiple clampings he switched to a car, because the van was doomed. It was marked. A bit like yours, I’d say.
September 3rd, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Marked, but not doomed, I hope Darragh. The war with those bastards continues. This post may dissappear temporarily in a couple of days.
September 4th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Are you going undercover? Infiltrate the clampers, find out their secrets and destroy them from within, I like it…
September 25th, 2009 at 1:02 am
[…] I tried being reasonable. I tried pursuing my grievances with Dublin Street Parking Services through the official channels. I wrote their complaints department, protesting my treatment, […]
November 6th, 2009 at 4:09 am
[…] car has been stowed away at an undisclosed location for the past few weeks, while I waited for the heat to die down with the clampers etc. Unfortunately, some kids had obviously stumbled upon my hiding place, kicked the wing mirrors […]
December 22nd, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Most car clamping is completely illegal.
They dispense with “due process” and in 99% of the cases, demand CASH for their disproportionate release fees:
http://www.FightTheBOOT.com
Please goto http://www.FightTheBOOT.com and sight the petition.
JACK
September 21st, 2010 at 8:05 am
[…] do that, but by then I’d missed the train. Now regular readers may know that – due to an ongoing vendetta between the clampers and myself – I sold my car to a Nigerian guy for €50 back in March. (Incidentally, he told me the car […]
November 18th, 2013 at 7:56 pm
haha,this is a very funny story! I howled laughing. however i do sympathise as i was clamped two weeks ago and im still not over it. May the flees of a thousand camels infest the balls of that cunt…