opportunity_cost
14-04-2006, 10:39 PM
The 'Tonight with Trevor McDonald' program has just done an expose on parking fines. Jonathan Maitland talked to various experts and parking officials and a number of issues were highlighted, namely:
1. The wording that some councils have used on the ticket themselves was wrong and made them unenforceable in a court of law.
(Program said that that was the case at least until November 2005 when a motorist won an appeal on that basis and the councils were advised to revise their wording on penalty tickets. They also added that some people with old tickets are appealing to get their money back on the same basis)
2. In London alone, many parking bays are incorrectly marked and are not found in the Road Traffic Act, therefore making them illegal. Examples given were:
a) parking bays delimited by a double line at one end and a single line at the other end.
b) parking bays where the broken white lines don't cover the lenght of the parking bay in its entirety.
(Parking expert said he's advised people on this matter and that they've won appeals using the Road Traffic Act)
3. Parking signs that also contravene the Road Traffic Act. Examples highlighted were signs at parking bays that should have stopped being used after a given date (1994 was mentioned in one example), making them illegal and unenforceable also.
The parking officials interviewed ackowledged that the issues above could well make a parking fine unenforceable. Their reply to "are you gonna give people affected by this issues their money back?" was along the lines of 'if you pay the fine, you've agreed to it so everything else doesn't matter' and they suggested that people should challenge the fine before paying up if they have any issues with it.
(Program implied that some people are going ahead and launchil appeals using these loopholes and that people are winning appeals and getting their money back)
Even Jonathan Maitland himself - he's disputing a parking fine he got - has managed to get the High Court to review his failed appeal after going with the parking expert advice and using the Road Traffic Act in his defence, so this could be massive :)
1. The wording that some councils have used on the ticket themselves was wrong and made them unenforceable in a court of law.
(Program said that that was the case at least until November 2005 when a motorist won an appeal on that basis and the councils were advised to revise their wording on penalty tickets. They also added that some people with old tickets are appealing to get their money back on the same basis)
2. In London alone, many parking bays are incorrectly marked and are not found in the Road Traffic Act, therefore making them illegal. Examples given were:
a) parking bays delimited by a double line at one end and a single line at the other end.
b) parking bays where the broken white lines don't cover the lenght of the parking bay in its entirety.
(Parking expert said he's advised people on this matter and that they've won appeals using the Road Traffic Act)
3. Parking signs that also contravene the Road Traffic Act. Examples highlighted were signs at parking bays that should have stopped being used after a given date (1994 was mentioned in one example), making them illegal and unenforceable also.
The parking officials interviewed ackowledged that the issues above could well make a parking fine unenforceable. Their reply to "are you gonna give people affected by this issues their money back?" was along the lines of 'if you pay the fine, you've agreed to it so everything else doesn't matter' and they suggested that people should challenge the fine before paying up if they have any issues with it.
(Program implied that some people are going ahead and launchil appeals using these loopholes and that people are winning appeals and getting their money back)
Even Jonathan Maitland himself - he's disputing a parking fine he got - has managed to get the High Court to review his failed appeal after going with the parking expert advice and using the Road Traffic Act in his defence, so this could be massive :)