quibble

Hello, we are Jonathan and Abigail - unashamed pedants who want to bring this affliction to bear on all things public policy and practice. We believe that details matter, especially in public administration. This is why today we are founding quibble: a campaign to fix the small stuff. Think, for example, about the cookie banner that we click on every webpage. Each instance is not a big deal, so we just put up with it. But its cumulative impact adds up - on average we press it 5 times per day. The European Commission estimates that it costs EU citizens 343 million hours per year. And who is there to represent the impacts of seemingly minor issues like this in a systematic way? We want quibble to be the answer. In the case of the cookie banner, lots of advocacy has rightly focused on privacy, but has this meant that user experience has taken a backseat? We believe there are ways to improve user experience without compromising on privacy. We will share more about this soon. Consider another example. Did you know that in some government-run car parks you can be fined for a minor keying error, such as accidentally typing a zero instead of an “o”? Again, we will come to the detail of this quibble in the coming weeks, but for now just consider again the question: who? Who is there currently to systematically represent the interests of the parker who is given an unfair ticket? An inherent feature of consumer interests is that those who have them rarely have enough other things in common to make collective organisation and representation feasible. This is the gap that quibble seeks to fill. Now of course excellent consumer interest groups exist. But understandably quibbles might not be at the top of their lists. Our hope is that quibble will be complementary; picking up the bottom-of-the-list issues faced by various groups - the stuff they are almost too embarrassed to raise because they are too small. We are not embarrassed about detail. If you’ve ever had a splinter, you know small things can have a big impact. This is what quibble is committed to tackling, and our wider hope is that by doing so we will also incentivise policy makers to be even more careful about detail. Check out our website here, including our first four campaigns: quibble.org.uk

A really helpful image showing one of the reasons we received so many quibbles about Puffin pedestrian crossings. Having communicated with a manufacturer of these types of signals, and having read some of the government's guidance on their proper installment and use, here is the explanation we have received (...you can decide how reassuring it is from the user's perspective): A green signal on the near-side is an invitation to begin crossing. Once this invitation period has ended, the crossing does not simply assume that everybody has reached the opposite kerb, as on-crossing detection is used to monitor speed. In other words, so long as you start crossing when the signal was green (based on your near-side signal), you should not need to worry that the traffic might begin while you are still crossing the road, and therefore you do not need to be able to see a signal while you are crossing. However, it is easy to see why it might still feel disconcerting for the user - being halfway across a wide crossing like the one below, and not being able to see any signal in the process...

🚗🅿️ Why should the rules set out in the new (and rightly lauded) Private Parking Code of Practice not also apply in local authority car parks and on-street parking? Since it's been decided that a fine should not be issued for a minor keying error by private car park operators, surely that principle should also apply to local authorities. Having written to the Department for Transport about this we were informed that there are currently no plans to amend the Statutory Guidance for Local Authorities on the Civil Enforcement of Parking Contraventions, which would provide equivalent nation-wide protections. We have therefore now addressed an open letter to the Minister @justinmadders to request action on this - an open goal to extend the good work that's already been done! 🙂

Very interesting results here:

😅 (In all seriousness - no quibbles too petty for us to consider!)

The full text of the Code of Practice has now been published, and it does indeed clarify that a fine for a minor keying error should be cancelled. We're counting this as a win.🎉😃 (Now for local authority car parks, too...!)

Yes - but it's not just private car parks. We have received testimonies from several who have faced fines for minor keying errors in local authority car parks, too. See this example from Ealing council: theguardian.com/money/2025/j… And the rules announced today do not apply to local authority car parks. We need local authorities to commit to waiving these fines. In the meantime, we are pushing DfT for clearer statutory guidance.

🅿️🚗Waiving fines for minor licence plate keying errors is something we've been campaigning on for months. We've been expecting this announcement, and we're really pleased to see it. 🎉 However, as always, the details will really matter. 🔎 One that will be important is that minor keying errors (e.g. typing a 1 instead of an I, or a zero instead of an O), are included in the "honest mistakes" category, that therefore leads to a complete cancellation of the charge. The government's press release currently lists "entering the wrong vehicles registration" as within the category of errors that should lead to a maximum £20 penalty. Although that may be reasonable for major keying errors, minor ones should be completely waived, as is actually already standard in the "Private parking sector single Code of Practice" (see image). (Despite this Code already being in place, it has not always been applied by private car parks (bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdel…), so these rules should help enforcement - that's why quibblers should celebrate today!) But since this Code of Practice already exists for private car parks, we have been pushing for the same standards to be set for local authority car parks, because these have also been guilty of issuing unfair fines: theguardian.com/money/2025/j…. While DfT does have statutory guidance that authorities should act "fairly and proportionately" and to exercise their discretion "sensibly and reasonably" there are clearly gaps in application of this principle when it comes to minor keying errors. We have therefore been asking DfT to improve their statutory guidance to local authorities in this area. Unfortunately, they have told us that there are currently no plans to do this. This means we have a situation where the government is applying one principle across the private parking sector (correctly) but not ensuring that the same principle is applied to government / local authority car parks. So today we'll celebrate a little; tomorrow our work continues...!

✅ Already on it: the driver or train manager/guard repeating automated messages is one of the main issues we’re highlighting.

🚝💺🔊 A brief update on our train announcement work: While surveys have shown that the overall frequency of train announcements is about right, as many of you have told us there do remain issues of unnecessary repetition, and audibility.  Happily, we are not alone in highlighting this. In their 2026 What Matters to Rail Passengers in Great Britain  @TransportFocus found that "Clear and accurate audible announcements" was rail passengers' number one priority in terms of improving accessibility, with 64% of passengers saying this was "Very important". Using insights that have been shared with us by you, publicly available evidence, and some of our own findings, we have prepared a briefing on the evidence here which will be submitted to the Minister for Rail, and the teams managing the GBR transition.  For one, we are looking for clarity on what will happen to the Rail Delivery Group's Customer Information Pledges as part of the transition, and - assuming they are to be carried over in some form - the possibility of a tweak which we think would better account for this issue. More soon...!