Technology is great but only when it works

SWMBO and I are just back from a fabulous week in the sun. Everything about our adventure was perfect – apart from the DART crossing.

I have had a DART account since it was announced they were stopping you from throwing a handful of cash into the basket at the barrier.

It’s ostensibly a good system, using current technology. Every time you cross the Thames via the bridge into Kent or through the tunnel into Essex, your car registration is read electronically and the fee of £2.50 deducted from the credit card details you supplied when registering.

On our return to deepest Suffolk I checked my DART account – our return journey, from Gatwick Airport, was listed as fee paid. But there was no mention of the outward journey ten days earlier.

Must look into that, I said to myself. Then I forgot.

Until yesterday. In amongst our post was an envelope bearing the legend DART Penalty Notice.

It was for our outward journey almost two weeks ago now.

The notice had two fuzzy, but identifiable, photos of my car, complete with full registration.

So, the cameras picked up the car and its reg but did not register the journey with my account.

I rang DART and was told if I paid then the penalty would be cancelled. They could not work out what had happened but sometimes the cameras did not match registrations with accounts. It could have been foggy (it wasn’t), the plate could have been dirty (it wasn’t, as the notice photos clearly showed) etc. etc.

Anyway, they found my account details (very easily) and £2.50 was taken from my credit card.

Why am I boring you with this? Well, one of the current solutions to the Irish border Brexit conundrum is to use technology to check traffic.

Good luck with that.