One of the funnier stories I’ve read this week is that of privately employed, parking attendants, now known as super wardens, in Eccles, Manchester being issued CCTV head sets and subsequently being given the power to issue fines up to £80 ($160) for littering and antisocial behavior.  This is the most humorous use of big brother watching you that I’ve seen yet.  Seriously, I can’t stop laughing at the thought of someone with little power walking around with a camera on their head, trying to catch you breaking a minor law.

Their main role is to issue parking tickets but under legislation brought in last year they will also have powers to give on-the-spot fines for anti-social behaviour.

Salford council has asked the wardens to issue penalties up to £80 for offences which include littering, flyposting and allowing dogs to foul the pavement. NCP will use the film as evidence to back up their wardens if any fine is challenged and also in the event of any attack or abuse.

Woo hoo, I got a fine for dog poo, but I still beat the crap out of that guy around the corner and stole his wallet.

Britain, like many countries, has problems with murders, rapes, assaults, and muggings and their genius idea was, “hey let’s put some cameras on those parking attendants and let them fine people for littering or hanging about.  That’ll teach ‘em.”  What will really happen is the cameras will record the traffic wardens hanging out with each other in the back alley, smoking cigarettes and tossing the butts on the ground.  This will, of course, be temporarily interrupted when a traffic warden sees a pretty young woman passing by.

Now every cop, and pseudo cop, has a head camera so they can walk around looking like complete morons.  From what I’ve read, there is a problem in Eccles with antisocial behavior, however, having people run around with video cameras is really the wrong way to go around trying to prevent this problem.

Over in Crawley, West Sussex, the local council has already had to apologize to a grandmother for a ticket she received because for accidentally kicking two potato into a gutter.

Then there’s the news agent who was fined £50 for a few scraps of paper found 120 yards away from him.  His guilt was that the scraps of paper had the name of his shop on them.  Brilliant!  Sell your stuff and put it in a bag with your store’s name on it and get fined when the customer turns out to be a litter bug.

Yes, I know I should be taking this more seriously and there is obvious good and bad aspects to head cameras.  There are also privacy concerns in the overzealousness of the new tasks given to the traffic wardens, but I’m sorry.  I need to stop now.  I can’t stop laughing at that photo.