Dublin motorists are likely to be impressed by the efficiency of the long-awaited wheel-clamping "service", according to the corporation's director of traffic, Mr Owen Keegan. From Wednesday, the first two of a fleet of five white wheel-clamping vans, emblazoned with a blue slogan "Keeping Dublin Moving", will be patrolling the streets. As a "special introductory offer", the corporation intends merely to put notices on offending cars warning owners they would run the risk of being clamped from next week for any similar parking infringements.
Motorists who overstay at meters or park illegally face the prospect of paying a £65 on-the-spot fine to have their cars "declamped", while offenders parking on bus lanes or clearways will be towed away. "We are determined to achieve a much higher level of compliance with parking regulations in the city and I believe that we now have a mechanism to achieve that," Mr Keegan said. "The ideal thing for us would be that motorists got that message.
"Basically, they have been getting away with an awful lot for a very long period of time. But the game is up and we've moved on to a new era in traffic law enforcement. At this stage, I believe that motorists will be inclined to accept the need for change."
The new service will be operated on contract by an Irish subsidiary of Central Parking Systems, a US multinational. But the director of traffic emphasised the company's revenue from the operation was not being determined on a "fee per clamp" basis. Instead, it will receive an overall sum for delivering an agreed level of service. This follows the latest practice in Britain, where earlier experiences with "fee per clamp" led to outrage over indiscriminate clamping by "cowboy" contractors. The corporation is anxious to ensure wheel-clamping in Dublin is not operated in a "vindictive" manner. Thus, anyone who finds his or her car clamped will be able to ring up and have it declamped within an hour on payment of the fine.
However, hard luck cases will not be entertained. If a car is wheel-clamped, there will be no way of avoiding the £65 fine - for example, by seeking to have it quashed by the courts (or by the Minister for Justice), as one can with ordinary parking fines.
It is now more than 10 years since the short-lived Dublin Transport Authority announced it would be introducing wheel-clamps as a deterrent to illegal parking. But the DTA did not survive long enough to implement this plan, which died with its abolition in 1987.
Seven years later, the final report of the Government-sponsored Dublin Transportation Initiative again emphasised the need for traffic law enforcement as one of the main planks of its balanced programme to deal with the capital's deteriorating traffic situation.
Wheel-clamping was among the measures proposed for consideration by the DTI. But the perception of this penalty as "draconian", at least among motorists, meant that it was shelved - at least until Operation Freeflow in late-1996 was shown to be a success.
Since then, Mr Keegan has detected a much greater willingness among motorists to accept the need for stricter traffic law enforcement. He also promised that the revenue raised from greater compliance with parking charges would be recycled into better traffic management. As for motorists who park on clearways and bus lanes, there will be no "special introductory offers". Their cars will be removed by a new fleet of tow-away trucks - also operated by Central Parking Systems - which will be operating on the streets from September.