Parking Ticket Appeals article discussion

PlasticMan_2

@Neil B,

You appear to have misunderstood me, sorry if I was unclear. I was absolutely not suggesting that you have posted inaccurate advice, quite the contrary. You seem to be in the small minority of posters that actually understand the point of this thread. This fact and your apparent continuing frustration with the majority who don't get it were the reasons for my brackets. Please excuse me if I was slightly amused by your increasing curtness and the lack of difference it appears to be making. Also, sorry for not replying earlier. I imagine some of us spend more time here than others.

I used cycle lanes as an example. The highway code says:
"You MUST NOT drive or park in a cycle lane marked by a solid white line during its times of operation. Do not drive or park in a cycle lane marked by a broken white line unless it is unavoidable. You MUST NOT park in any cycle lane whilst waiting restrictions apply." (their bold capitals - not mine). My principal issue here is with the solid ones during their "times of operation". Admittedly the dashed ones are less clear (what does "unavoidable" mean in this context*?). But I fear this is a bit off topic.

@Dan (& Neil B again)
Thanks for pointing out those paragraphs. I responded primarily to the email (the weekly "Martin's Money Tips" email which referred to both the "Private Parking Tickets" article and the "Parking Ticket Appeals" article). I appreciate that Martin does indeed make it clear that he in no way condones people parking illegally. I do think it likely that people who have parked illegally will also try to use the information to their advantage, particularly if they feel they've not really done anything wrong (and I've seen examples of this in the forums) but in fairness that shouldn't be blamed on the article. I also think people trying to get off valid charges will vastly outnumber people charged unfairly, but that's only my supposition.

I just worry about a culture where some people feel they can choose whether to obey certain rules or not, and this particularly seems to apply to driving, (the whole right versus a privilege question). Another example would be why should road atlases publish speed camera locations (so we can choose to only break the law when we're less likely to get caught?). I'm frequently amazed by people's indignation at getting caught doing something illegal, when roughly 3000 people are killed on British roads annually. However this is probably a much bigger subject than can (or should) be covered here.

Tim

* In my experience you can always avoid parking in a particular location if your car still works and you're prepared to walk a few hundred metres or come back later.

Neil_B

Thanks.

PlasticMan wrote: »

I used cycle lanes as an example. The highway code says:
"You MUST NOT drive or park in a cycle lane marked by a solid white line during its times of operation. Do not drive or park in a cycle lane marked by a broken white line unless it is unavoidable. You MUST NOT park in any cycle lane whilst waiting restrictions apply." (their bold capitals - not mine). My principal issue here is with the solid ones during their "times of operation". Admittedly the dashed ones are less clear (what does "unavoidable" mean in this context*?). But I fear this is a bit off topic.

Now that you mention times of operation and waiting restrictions it makes more sense.
Interestingly I can't recall ever seeing a PCN for contravening the cycle lane itself and I'm not sure there is such a facility to penalise (must be somewhere?). the few PCNs you have seen issued will almost certainly be 01s and 02s re waiting or loading restrictions. As far as I can see, that is all they can use?

I see people park/stop, etc in complete ignorance (mostly) of restrictions. --- Bus stops, zig zags, no loading, DY cos it is the middle of the night?
Enforcement is currently ineffective as targetted at the easy money, with a heavy emphasis on moving traffic at 'traps' IMO.

---

You might have noticed that I refuse to assist anyone who states an intention to lie or mislead in an appeal. I think it has only happened once on here.

in contrast, I will still fight PCNs where the Council have failed in the slightest Statutory duty, if I feel it has some chance of winning.
-

mofat_2

I was parked in a retail park for 35 mins, where I went to the bank first located outside of the carpark, and then made a purchase from one of the stores sited in the carpark. I recevied a PARKING CHARGE as it was called from a company called UK PAO Ltd from Leeds for £60 it does state that if I fail to pay within 10 days a further fee of £3 per day will be included up untill court action is taken. On checking the signage it does state that you must not leave the carpark at any time whilt your vehicle is parked there.
My wife is the owner and was not present any thoughts on my course of actions Many thanks

Orford

mofat wrote: »

I was parked in a retail park for 35 mins, where I went to the bank first located outside of the carpark, and then made a purchase from one of the stores sited in the carpark. I recevied a PARKING CHARGE as it was called from a company called UK PAO Ltd from Leeds for £60 it does state that if I fail to pay within 10 days a further fee of £3 per day will be included up untill court action is taken. On checking the signage it does state that you must not leave the carpark at any time whilt your vehicle is parked there.
My wife is the owner and was not present any thoughts on my course of actions Many thanks

Look at the other UK Parking threads:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&q=site%3Aforums.moneysavingexpert.com+uk+parking+&btnG=Search&meta=
Don't pay
Don't phone/write appeal
Ignore all further correspondence
Eventually they will go away

Gilly1966

I recently parked in a disabled badge space at a Tesco Extra store and was issued with a parking ticket for not displaying a disabled permit/badge.

I do not have a disabled badge/permit, and only parked in this space out of frustration because the parent and child spaces were full with several vehicles (that I witnessed infront of me) with no children on board.

I approached the attendant to query this fact, to be informed me that Tesco had instructed him not to do anything about the parent and child spaces.

I contacted Tesco about this who have been less than helpful, and have advised that the ticket will stand. I challenged the unfairness of not policing the parent and child spaces in the same way as the disabled spaces, and they could not explain why this is the case, claiming this is the decision of the private company.

I have since received a Charge Certificate from UK Parking Control Ltd, advising that a Parking Charge of £70 was due, reduced to £40 if paid within 14 days.

What should I do?

Crabman

Gilly1966 wrote: »

What should I do?

Welcome to MSE

The private company simply wants your money so of course they're not going to back down. You can ignore this unenforceable piece of rubbish and make sure you tell everyone you know about this scam. The only time you shouldn't ignore is if they actually issue court papers. However, like most PPCs they'll probably just make empty threats and tell outright lies to scare you into paying before leaving you alone when they realise you're not going to be intimidated.

mofat_2

Whats my stand if this company have pictures of me leaving the actual carpark and then returning to commence my shopping. Remembering that the vehicle is owned by a female. And any pictures that they may have is of me and my kids !

Gilly1966

"I don't believe it" I've been done again - this time by Euro Car Parks.

On Friday I parked in the Capital Retail Park car park by Cardiff City Stadium at 18.00, as my son's were going to watch the Cardiff Blues whilst I looked around the shops and made notes of presents for my daughter's birthday. I spent a few hours looking around Smyths, and Asda in the main, but also did some window shopping of my own in M&S, and a few of the other outlets that are there, and followed all of this up with a snack from Greggs the bakers before I collected my sons from the stadium after the match at around 21.30.

However, during this time a Parking Charge Notice was served on my car which is not very clearly marked but suggests that the charge is because I was a stadium user.

There are no (obvious) fixed signs referring to match day parking restrictions, although we did notice some sandwich boards being moved back into the Asda entrance after the match. However the Asda attendants advised that they only covered the car park immediately infront of Asda which has it's own access road (although it can be accessesed from the other parking areas too where we were parked), so I must assume that these sandwich boards were only on their entrance road.

I have spoken with Euro Car Parks who advise that there are 11 signs covering 1100 (approx) spaces with a 2 hour restriction, but having revisited the site on Sunday to buy my daughter's birthday presents from Smyths, I couldn't see any, so I will be checking this out this Friday when I will be going to the match with my sons.

As this is a retail park with many big stores such as M&S, Smyths, Asda to name a few, it would be very easy to spend 3 or 4 hours shopping with a stop for a coffee and/or snack in Costa Coffee or Subway or Greggs (bakers) so it is likely that a lot of unsuspecting shoppers will be caught out as we approach Christmas.

Again I do not believe that this charge is justified or lawful - thoughts!?

peter_the_piper

I expect the current advice is the same as that given before. Ignore.

AFG

Any advice would be very helpful!

In march I went to Manchester to see some live music. I parked my car on a bit of scrub land on the side of the road alongside about 4 other cars.
1 hr and 45 mins later I returned to my car to find that it had disappeared along with the other cars that had been there. There was a piece of paper on the wall saying call this mobile number and that the cars had been towed.
I was told by the man on the end of the phone that I had to pay £400 CASH to get my car back, and I also couldn't get it until the following morning and that they would charge me a further £50 cash to store it over night. I live in london. I had to stay in a hotel overnight and then pay £450 to them to release my car. They were aggressive and rude and threatened to escort me off the property if I didn't stop asking questions.
I paid the fine and detailed that it was paid under protest.
I contacted the company called IMPERIAL SECURITY detailing how unfair it was etc etc using the template letter on MSE and they basically laughed at me and said that they had gone to court a million times and that they always won and that the police were on their side etc. (forget the fact that there was minimal signage and the release fee was entirely disproportionate!)

I have left it 5 months as I had no idea what to do and found Imperial security quite intimidating...but now it's started to really annoy me that they can get away with fleecing people in such a way.
Has anyone encountered a similar situation? Do you have any advice as to what to do?

Many thanks :0