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Comment by voisin | Hacker News Reader

London’s congestion charge is particularly annoying as (at least when I lived there in 2012-2013) it was very easy to take the wrong turn and be in the zone, not realize you were ever in it (even for a single block) and consequently not pay the fee in advance. If you don’t pay the fee the same day, they send you a bill for like 10x the amount. I found TfL to be a totally corrupt organization that was trying to obfuscate its rules to extract larger fees.

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Choosing a street at random, there are red "Congestion Charging © Central ZONE" signs on both sides of the road, as well as a huge painted © on the road lane for turning into the road.

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5168161,-0.1655445,3a,49.9y,...

I am not sure what the case is today and in all areas but for what it’s worth, in 2013ish when I got hit with two tickets back to back when I drove to a conference that was on the edge of the congestion zone two days in a row, I went back to the location on foot and walked all around and there was zero signage indicating that the street I turned onto was the congestion zone, and the opposite end of the street I turned immediately out of it.

If there really are no signs you can appeal the fine — but lots of old forum posts of people trying this seem to end with them accepting that there was a sign.

You can look at old captures in Google Street View.

I'm a huge fan of bollards that retract for motorist with access, but that's be impractical in such a case. Bollards are simply more visible for the average motorist who doesn't bother to read signs. The Netherlands are far more advanced when it comes to designing roads so the road user visually understands "you enter a village and 80 km/h is not acceptable any more".

I live in Linz in Austria, three years ago they turned a small passage into pedestrian only street and I still stop motorist and explain then that things have changed. Most just didn't see or understand the sign (which comes with an extra sign with a lot of exception obviously, for a 100m passage with no parking spaces or private garages). The city won't draw the "pedestrian zone" sign on the ground, I'm sure that would help a lot.

Good. We Londoners absolutely support that.

Which part? Congestion charges or Byzantine rules designed to obfuscate? If the former, so do I. If the latter, why not simply charge the fees you want to charge rather than be shifty about it?

I'm a Londoner and I don't see why things should be draconian if someone makes an error. Just send them a bill for the normal charge if they go in without paying once. Maybe for repeat offenders charge 10x.

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