Smile, you're on 50m camera

Photo / Sarah Ivey

A man with an angry look on his face sounds his car horn and sticks his middle finger up over the top of his steering wheel.

He's driving, city-bound in rush-hour traffic on Auckland's Quay St, and has just noticed one of Auckland City Council's bus lane officers standing near him behind a video camera.

The man is one of several motorists who, over the space of a few minutes around 8am yesterday, honked their horns at officer number 243, who wishes only to be known by his first name, Chander.

Like police, the officers are identified by numbers instead of their names to protect their identity from the public.

"People show their finger and they just say 'wanker'. We get abuse ... some people, they stop their car and they come to me and they ask a few questions about bus lanes and they get agitated that they have travelled on the bus lane."

But the enforcement officer of six years, who has worked patrolling the city's bus lanes for four years, doesn't live in fear.

"We are used to it but I don't take it personally. I can understand why one person gets frustrated, he's not taking his anger out on me.

"We are used to the job. We are well-trained in conflict resolution and everything.

"Most of the time, as you can see, people are following the law."

Despite documents showing Mayor John Banks and the Citizens & Ratepayers majority instructed officers to hire extra staff to increase revenue by $12 million over three years, Chander says he is not paid based on the number of tickets he issues.

"I don't have any quota."