I was a recent victim of Islington Council’s policy of catching with its ubiquitous cameras a car which has inadvertently taken the wrong route through one of the many “traffic calming” devices which they have installed.

The particular ones I mean are where there are two routes through a barrier – one very narrow on the immediate left of an island, and one nearer the middle of the road, still on the left but on the right of a separating bollard.

All traffic apart from quite large vehicles has to take the far left hand lane, which is in fact only 6ft 6ins wide in Riversdale Road, Highbury.

The usual cameras are placed high above and on both sides of the road, but, as usual, one does not know one’s car has been photographed until one receives the PCN – Penalty Charge Notice – nearly a month later.

The fine is �60 if one pays within 14 days, or �120 if one pays it any later or if one appeals and loses the appeal. If this is the council’s method of discouraging the offending motorist from appealing at all it probably succeeds, and is to me a travesty of justice.

I feel that a �60 fine is quite heavy enough, even though it is described by the council as a “discounted” amount.

It may be too late to appeal against this fine now, but I am asking for it to be kept to �60, which I feel is a sufficient deterrent to most drivers.

If any of your readers have been charged with a fine for a traffic offence, appealed, lost the appeal and had their fine doubled, it would be worth publicising it in the hope that this practice is stopped. – Marian Janes, Crescent Road, N8.