Parking ticket in Asda car park - Is this legal, can they take me to court?

IvanOpinion

Poppy9 wrote:

How else you steer a car if you regularly drive a motor vehicle but cannot turn the steering wheel of a motor vehicle by hand even if that wheel is fitted with a turning knob?

Remember we are talking about government issuing these things through a civil service department .. there does not have to be any form of interlligence behind such decisions.

Ivan

mikemoate

How else you steer a car if you regularly drive a motor vehicle but cannot turn the steering wheel of a motor vehicle by hand even if that wheel is fitted with a turning knob?

The vehicle will normally be specially adapted for steering by foot or joystick.

morveryn

This interesting article regarding parking was in The Times today.



The Times May 31, 2006


Thousands of parking cheats to face fraud crackdown
By Alexandra Frean, Social Affairs Correspondent



FRAUD officers are to clamp down on cheats who misuse residents’ parking permits or disabled parking badges.
Motorists who get permits by claiming their workplace or a friend’s home as their place of residence will be prosecuted. Those who hold on to permits after moving from the area will also be tracked down.



The National Fraud Initiative (NFI) will also target family members who continue to use blue badges after the disabled person dies.

It will also seek out drivers using forged or stolen blue badges, which are worth about £500 on the black market.

The Audit Commission, the spending watchdog that runs the NFI, said it was taking action because millions of pounds in revenue are being lost as a result of parking fraud.

Blue badge permits, issued to disabled drivers or passengers, not only allow free parking in city centres but also allow holders to escape the £8-a-day congestion charge in London.

Residents’ parking permits cost about £60 a year in London and allow the holders to park free in designated zones — often near Tube stations — saving hundreds or even thousands of pounds a year.

The Commission said that all 33 London boroughs and any other public authority that wanted to take part would be subjected to a residents’ parking and blue badge “cheat sweep” this year and in 2007.

This will match permit applications against records such as council tax records, electoral rolls, death registers and housing benefit claims. Perpetrators face prosecution and fines of up to £2,500.

The clampdown was announced after the Audit Commission revealed yesterday that nearly 5,500 blue badges in London, Merseyside and Manchester were cancelled after it was discovered that they were being used after the holder had died.

Its report also found that a number of blue badges were reissued in London after the people entitled to them had died.

They included four badges in Wandsworth, which were used 347 times to avoid paying the congestion charge; ten in Barnet, used 80 times; and two in Camden, used 227 times.

Officials said the offenders were “from all walks of life”. Charges were brought against a solicitor, a bank employee and a care home manager after a campaign in Wandsworth.

Steve Bundred, the chief executive of the Audit Commission, said the practice of using a dead person’s identity to save on parking was “shocking”.

“Most of these cases are examples of people profiting from their relatives’ death by illegally avoiding the parking and congestion charges that everyone else has to pay,” he said.

billie19

If only it worked though.

Should be like USA - They fine people that fraudulantley use disabled parking permits.

Would soon change a few minds - when they got a £200 on the spot fine.

Billie

wobbley

billie19 wrote:

If only it worked though.

Should be like USA - They fine people that fraudulantley use disabled parking permits.

Would soon change a few minds - when they got a £200 on the spot fine.

Billie

I think the fine in the UK is £1000 - enough to deter ! But like so many of our wonderful laws, it's not really that important enough to be enforced rigidly.

billie19

Maybe we should get Martin to set up a campaign.....


Billle
xx

Poppy9

Sadly I don't think anyone is surprised at the level of fraudulent use of blue badges. It's a sign of the times. It would be like anyone saying that there is no abuse of Incapacity benefit or no one is guilty of tax evasion.

As a society we are less tolerant of others and mainly look after number one.

Any 'crackdown' on any sector of fraud usually penalises the genuine and the fraudsters escape punishment.

Coupon-mad

geo555 wrote:

You could challenge the fine under the 1689 Bill of Rights

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hereford/worcs/4450196.stm

In part, it reads: "All grants and promises of fines and forfeitures of particular persons before conviction are illegal and void."

"And when they've got up off the floor and stopped laughing, you could fell them again by quoting from the Magna Carta. Even funnier if you use the original Latin" (quote by greenwich on page 1 of this thread)

Did you read the Mail on Sunday today greenwich (probably in other papers too)? About the chap who seems to have used the Bill of Rights to avoid London congestion charge...!:rotfl:

Poppy9

I saw one car/family really taking the p*ss today. Went to an out of town shopping centre and a Ford Mondeo managed to park at an angle taking up two disabled spaces. No driver in the car just a few kids and woman. No blue badge and when approached by another person re the parking she just shrugged and said he was in a hurry and had just nipped into Lidl's.

white_rose_jax

I am disabled and was charged £60 for forgetting to display my badge. I am not complaining. I`m just really annoyed with myself. I won`t do it again!