PENALTY

I'm not Catholic, and this is not a confessional box, but I feel like it might do me some good if I tell you something.

I accidentally drove in a bus lane, and I've been sent a penalty charge notice.

It's okay - the guilt is worse than the charge, and it's funny that this a very specific kind of red-faced embarrassment. I went through the emotions in under a second, while I unfolded the piece of paper...

"But I didn't know it was a... I mean I was only... I can't believe there's a camera... I got caught... is there any appeal I can... nope, well... bang to rights. Gosh. Things like this don't happen to me."

That last bit is true. I've never been caught in a speed trap, hit another vehicle while in motion, or even driven without a seatbelt on! Though I have been breathalysed (a story for some other time, but let me say I was completely sober, just exhausted) and I have been fined for bad parking.

Yeah - that was the only other time. I was in a rush, in a car park in Lincoln of all places, and I'd parked across the white lines of two bays without realising. At the time, coming back to my car to find a fixed charge penalty notice was the crowning whimper on a miserable weekend. It was still disappointing.

Now this. I drove through a bus lane on the 21st of August, and there I am in a colour photo, doing the thing. I knew at the time too - it hadn't been deliberate; it was a stupid mistake at a poorly labelled intersection. Ah but that's no excuse, and I'm not angry. I feel bad, yes, embarrassed, of course, foolish? Oh yes. But I'm not angry, not even with myself. I'll pay it and get on with life, being more careful next time.

I guess that's part of the point, isn't it? Rehabilitation. Sometimes making the world better starts with owning up to the stuff we got wrong ourselves, before we try to fix it all out there.

And I think maybe the Catholics might agree with that. Confession, they say, and I agree, is good for the soul.