Parking Ticket Appeals article discussion

Neil_B

ssr123 wrote: »

I was on my way to collect an item from Argos in Hammersmith from Hanwell w7. It was not available in nearby stores.I had picked up my wife and 11 year old daughter from school and as it was a long drive that i had not made before, my wife suggested i park and she would find out if there was a shorter route we could take. We parked in front of some shops and we were not causing any blockage of traffic. She came back in litterally 2 minutes with instructions. We turned back i followed a much shorter route via the A4. I was astonished to recieve a PCN notice (18-05-09) Anyway i made an appeal on the 25th of MAY and had not heard anything so i thought the council had quashed it. On the 20th of JULY ( nearly two months later) i recievd a letter stating that my appeal was not succesful. Can they reply so late and is there anything i can do about it.

Oh, OK,

So what exactly did you think of the 'article'?

BigSaver_2

£35 charge which you unfair, (how can that be justified?)...would you agree?

There was no where to park around that street and I have never seen a taxi there during the morning/ afternoon, likely there only use it after 9pm. So what is the problem there...other cars behind my car were parked in a dotted yellow line area and didn't get a ticket (I can understand disable badge holders parking there but some of the other cars were not (maybe they had an permit or something/just lucky).

Thank you

fleetingmind

Got home on Friday from work looking forward to the weekend opened up my post and found I had a Penalty Charge Notice aka a Parking Fine. £60.

Now up until receiving this we had not had a ticket put on our car or been notified and the first we had heard of it was a month later when we received this notice. It was issued by a Civil Enforcement Officer so surely they should have had to leave a ticket on the car?
I thought only CCTV parking fines could be issued by post.

Going back the 1 month to the date of the supposed fine (01/07/2009) we can work out we could have parked there but can't be sure but we have parking there for years and never paid before.

IMO the sign is not clear and says permit holders can park there or maximum stay only 2 hours. Then provides a number. No talk of cost etc
Ok reading it back I suppose you can interpret it as we should have paid but I don't think it is that clear.

I thought when you got the ticket on the car you get a chance to pay a reduced charge if you pay within in 14 days. Obviously not getting the ticket we could not have done it.

Is it worth contesting it?

Neil_B

Serious question.

Can people really be this thick?
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redkev76

Hello all

Had a situation with a parking fine on Saturday and wanted to ask for advice before i decideb whether to appeal. I don't own a car but occasionally hire one when we have particular plans for the weekend. Hired one Friday night as we were planning to do quite alot of travelling with my wife and kids. We live in a road that is permit parking Monday-Saturday 9-5. On Saturday morning, I was sorting the kids out in the morning as my wife was ill in bed and I completely forgot to put a ticket on the car. At 10.09 I went outside as I saw a ticket inspector had just got me. I went out and spoke to him and he said he realised my situation and would rescind the ticket if he could but he had already sent it through the system so I could only appeal it. I took the ticket off the car and went back inside to finish getting the kids ready as we were planning to leave at 11.

When we left at 11, I found I had received another ticket at 10.50 from a different inspector.

I was actually given the wrong information by the first ticket inspector as I was told the fine was £40 (it says £50 on the ticket) and was led to believe that he was the inspector dealing with that road for the day so there was no need to get a parking ticket after he had fined me the first time as we were about to leave anyway.

My question is this, should I:

a) pay both parking fines at £50 each as I was naive
b) pay the original one but appeal the second one
C) appeal both and claim that I was not aware that the permit parking applied at the weekend as I am not a regular card owner
d) something else

I realise this is a long post but would really appreciate your help. Was my son's first birthday weekend and it really set it off on a sour note.

Thanks

Kev

msmanda85

Hey people, I got a parking ticket because I left enough space in front of my so that the car in front could get out without too much difficulty and also so I could get my own car out. Due to this my back wheels (just my back wheels) ended up on a double yellow line. The rest of the car was fine. Have I got good grounds to appeal!! I took pictures that clearly show my car was only just on double yellow lines. Thanks Amanda

Spartacus_Mills

msmanda85 wrote: »

Hey people, I got a parking ticket because I left enough space in front of my so that the car in front could get out without too much difficulty and also so I could get my own car out. Due to this my back wheels (just my back wheels) ended up on a double yellow line. The rest of the car was fine. Have I got good grounds to appeal!! I took pictures that clearly show my car was only just on double yellow lines. Thanks Amanda

You have nothing to lose by appealing.

gooners1982

I wonder if anyone can help I parked my car in a supermarket car park and the sign said that i could park there for 1 1/2 hours unfortunatly i was a little bit over but thought no more of it, I have now recieved a ticket saying that they have photographic evidence to say that i had over parked but on checking the signs I can not see anywhere on the sign that cameras are in use. Do I have to pay the ticket????

PlasticMan_2

Hello,

I was referred to the site article by the MSE email on the 19/09/2009.

I have to say I'm concerned by the tone of the whole thing. To me it suggests "park where you like, and if you get caught just argue a lot and you'll probably get let off".

Parking restrictions on public highways are there for a reason (generally public safety) and loads of people appealing against valid tickets just costs taxpayers money and slows up the process.

I'm a cyclist (and a driver) and I'm particularly sick of drivers that park in cycle lanes. It makes no difference to me if they're "only there two minutes" of if they have their hazards on. They're still parked illegally and they make my journey dangerous as I have to pull around them in busy traffic. The more often they get fined the better (most aren't).

I dislike this culture of "I disagree with the law, so I'll ignore it" whether it's parking where you like, speeding, jumping red lights on a push-bike or fiddling expenses, etc, etc. Martin writes "It's a hideous moment: you return to your car, van or motorbike to find a parking ticket on the windscreen or a clamp on the wheel." - translation: "It's a hideous moment: you've broken the law and got caught.". What next? "How to cover up your hit and run.", "How to lie to the police about that mugging charge."?

If you disagree with the law, get involved in trying to change it.

I'm generally a fan of MSE and I have plenty of sympathy for people with valid appeals - mistakes do happen (and maybe there are a few traffic wardens with bad attitudes, although most are just trying to do their job) - but I feel this article is badly judged. The quality of the posts on this thread tends to indicate there are quite a few blaggers out there, and they're not the sharpest tools either (eh Neil...).

Tim

ps Slightly off-topic, but if anyone wants a giggle at the drivers trying to tailgate buses through the Manchester city centre bollards just google "Manchester bollards video" (it won't let me post links )

Former_MSE_Dan

Hi PlasticMan,

Thanks for your feedback; hearing what MSE readers think of our guides is always instructive.

Here, the second and third paragraphs of the article are

The parking laws are in place for safety and to help traffic flow, and should benefit us all. Yet mistakes happen, whether it's an unclear sign, technology faults, overzealous parking attendants or just an honest error. The aim of this guide is to prevent you being out of pocket, when most reasonable people would think the ticket is unfair.


Yet if you've blocked a school gate, parked on a zig-zag, or caused a huge traffic back-log by taking a break on a red run, sorry, there's no sympathy here and this guide isn't intended to help; and even if it did you'd have little chance of success.

We absolute aren't campaigning for people to be able to park anywhere, as those paragraphs show. The whole guide is pointed at getting out of unfair tickets, of which there are sadly many.

Indeed, people who do try to appeal tickets that reasonable drivers would consider legitimate anecdotally seem to have a very high failure rate!

Dan