Parking Fine for having a puncture

ohreally

dchurch24 wrote:

We all walked up the road to wait for a chap from a local tyre place and to ensure that he could see us.

When we returned to our car, we found we had a ticket.

Playing devils' advocate for a moment, was it necessary for all 4 occupants of the car to leave the scene, especially when two are children. It may have been prudent for your partner to have remained in the car with the kids therefore enabling the situation to be explained to the enforcement officer.

dbs

I would pay the fine under duress state quite clearly at the time of paying I would be trying to appeal against the decision.

I would then write lots of letters to the local council stating my case if I got no satisfaction I would then contact the local media to get the council lots of bad publicity then if no refund would write to the local tourist board and council stating I would never holiday in the IOW again and would advise friends to do the same.

A few years ago my Dads friend bought a ticket entering a car park in IOW but the car park was full so they drove half a mile away to another council owned car park and used the previously bought ticket only to receive a fine no appeal they made was upheld.

They now never holiday in the IOW they would rather spend there money at some other resort.

2ax

Pay up and forget it, or write a proper letter in about it.

There is really no point in arguing this in court - if you had been there changing the wheel, you might have been able to talk the traffic warden out of it, but otherwise you should have paid.

It will scarcely be a valid claim in mitigation that the event was so stressful that you forgot to pay. Sorry to sound so unsympathetic, but 30p for parking for a few minutes to change the wheel, and then drive to the tyre place, would have been cheaper for you than calling them out anyway.

greenwich

I think you are almost certainly mistaken if you think that you can have your 'day in court' where you can explain the whole thing and persuade the judge to rule in your favour. Parking appeals don't work like that. Your appeal goes to an adjudicator. He/she has no discretion in the matter. If your vehicle broke the parking regulations, you lose. In your case you would have to show that the regulations do not apply to broken down vehicles (and of course to show that your vehicle was actually broken down). If you lose the appeal and still don't pay, you don't get taken to court: the council is allowed to simply register the debt in the county court. If you then still don't pay, they send the bailiffs to you.

Have a look at https://www.parking-appeals.gov.uk Your best course might be to pay up and just put this down to experience.

Bossyboots

This is going to be an on street parking notice so it is enforced in the Magistrates Court. It cannot be referred for adjudication either. "Broken down" or not, the vehicle was left in a pay to park bay and there is simply no defence to the parking ticket. As greenwich says there would have to be a regulation stating that broken down vehicles were exempt and then proof would need to be shown that the regulation applied in this case.

I think it would be very unwise to let this matter progress any further. The council will ask for the costs of bringing the matter to court which they are pretty much guaranteed to get, increasing the cost of this mistake significantly.

daveboy

Well, I've just been the victim of two PC plonkers on a Sunday night tailgating me into driving faster, then using that as a reason to follow me.

They then got me on the 'no seat belt' non-endorsable fixed penalty notice.

I considered court to begin with, even scoured the Road Traffic Act 1988 but decided it would cost me even more in the long run.

I suppose in a way I was lucky, as not wearing a seat belt will soon attract 3 penalty points as well.

So far I've had 2 fixed penalty notices - but I'm looking forward to what happens with not complying with the National Identity Card Act.

One day I will not pass go and will not collect £200. I will go to clinky.

photome

IMO I think you will lose the battle over this ticket and it will end up costing you more. I like others think that if one of you had stayed with the car things would have been different, as it was your car was "parked" in a pay and display space. You also say you went away for a weekend and yet the receipt for initial repair was 2 days prior, does this mean the tyre had two problems over the course of the weekend?

Has anyone asked why you didnt just put the spare on yourselves and then drive to the garage to have your puncture repaired?

dchurch24

ohreally wrote:

Playing devils' advocate for a moment, was it necessary for all 4 occupants of the car to leave the scene, especially when two are children. It may have been prudent for your partner to have remained in the car with the kids therefore enabling the situation to be explained to the enforcement officer.

It was a nice day and we assumed (quite rightly) that the chap would take some time to get to us - it seems to be the case these days that the customer takes second place, so we all took a walk up the road to meet him.
We didn't realise that it was a pay and display, as it was just a normal by the side of the road parking space, otherwise, I probably would have put a ticket on the car, or at the very least, one of us would have stayed with the car.

We didn't have our own spare with us, hence the tyre company sending someone out to us - I had (ok, ok, I know...) taken it out to make more room for our weekend away - 2 kids take up space!!!

As per the costs of going to court, I think this is exactly what councils like this bank on.

I have written a letter to them explaining the situation, and their response is, "just pay up".

I have now written to my MP as well, as I think this is just too much - anyone with eyes could see that we had a puncture, so the warden that day must have got out of the wrong side of bed or something.

There was no-one else parked in these spaces, so we wern't taking up a space that could have been used by someone else, and there were plenty of cars parked on the opposite side of the road with their wheels on the kerb, and on double yellows.

does this mean the tyre had two problems over the course of the weekend?

Yeah, as I explained in an earlier post, the tyre was punctured the day we arrived there and was repaired there and then. Then 2 days later it went flat again, hence the call to the tyre place and lack of reciept - they repaired the tyre (properly this time) free of charge.

The receipt I have for the tyre is about 2 days prior to this incident, as it was punctured before, the repair was not done correctly and the tyre went down again - resulting in this incident. The tyre co. sent a chap to us who came and put a spare on for us and then we went back to their depot and had it repaired again at no extra cost - hence no recipt at this time.

blue_haddock

dchurch24 wrote:

anyone with eyes could see that we had a puncture, so the warden that day must have got out of the wrong side of bed or something.

On which side was the puncture? if you have parked with the passenger side against the kerb and the puncture is on the drivers side there is every reason for him not to have noticed it. Also the warden will only check the windscreen and side windows for the ticket - they do not have to check for punctures or other signs of a breakdown.

I also think if you do go to court and tell the judge that the reason you couldn't change the wheel is because you removed the spare he will look less favourable on your case. The spare wheel is there exactly for this reason.

dchurch24

I would think that it's largely irrelevent to the case that I didn't have a spare with me.

If they say I was parking with a flat tyre, I think it likely that they would say I was parking while changing the tyre myself.

It's really annoyed me. We were intending to go back for 2 weeks with our friends next year for a holiday in the summer.
I don't think we will now - it's probably cheaper to go to Greece or somewhere anyway.

I have calmed down somewhat now though, and will send the cheque on Monday, but with a stern letter and telling them that we won't be returning.