“If everything else fails, read the instructions”

I have always been a believer in reading the instructions before I start trying to do something. I often upbraid others for wasting time fiddling with things for hours, then having to eventually resort to reading the instructions and discovering that what they were trying to do is either A impossible or B a 5 second process by simply pressing the correct series of buttons.

Well I have to admit that I have fallen foul of my own rules. During the course of last year we attended a large number of events in central London. Quite often with 2 vehicles, and on one particularly busy day we had a total of 5 vans and cars there. This has been for anything from one large event to upto five smaller events on the same day. Now central London is covered by the London Congestion Charge, and its my responsibility to register the vehicles for this and pay the required charges. Usually I manage it O.K., however on a number of occasions I have ended up with PCN's (Penalty Charge Notices). At the last count, along with parking fines and one tow away fee it added up to a shade over £800, none of which is tax deductible. The usual sequence of events is that due to the amount of events we are involved with, we set off mega early for the capital and I suddenly realise that I have not paid the congestion charges. I then resolve that I will do it the next morning without fail. We then carry out the one two, three or more events over the course of the day, arriving back home at perhaps 5AM. We then have two or three hours sleep, before jumping up and setting off to another part of the country for that days events, and I plain forget to pay our dues. Prompt a week later when a demand (or possibly more than one) drop thorough our letterbox.

Well I looked into the Transport for London site yesterday, and discovered that if I register our vehicles as a fleet, it insures me from receiving PCN charges, as every time we travel into London our number triggers an invoice that is sent out for that vehicle, brilliant! We have to register a minimum of ten vehicles at £10 each, which is less than the fine for two PCN's. Added to the fact that we have just accepted our 67th booking for this season (and we haven't reached April/May yet which is usually when we receive well over 50% of our bookings), over 25% of which are in London, and I could quite possibly have just presented a sizable fine from adding up over the season.

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