Park Right: The easy way to avoid parking tickets. Guide discussion

trisontana

Welcome to MSE. Could you please start your own thread as this one is rerved for displaying images of the various letters generated by private parking companies.

benderwitz

I originally came on here to check out advice from Martin Lewis about not paying private parking charges.
I have had a good root around and picked up loads of useful tips, advice and links! Thanks to erevryone who posted them.
I will not be paying the PCN of £60 from Parking Eye for parking in Whalley and thought I might pass on a little bit of useful advice too.

I parked up a couple of weeks ago, checked the parking costs and promptly dropped my coins into the machine and pressed the button for ticket, as I often do in car parks all over the country.
Then when I got the ticket out I noticed a registration number printed on it - not the reg of the car I was driving though. I didn't think too much of it and popped the ticket on the windscreen and got on with my business.
Now I have received this PCN I can't help wondering how many other drivers have done exactly the same and ended up with one of these notices!! Perhaps this produces much more revenue than the money raised from parking fees?
The keeper of the car in question is following Martin's advice and sending a reply generated from the template on the site, denying liability.
I am also informing the company that any further nuisance contacts from them will result in contact with Trading Standards quoting The Consumer Protection From Unfair Trading Regulations, para 5 (2b)

Oh...and there will be one less family visiting the village of Whalley in future.

trisontana

Don't bother writing to them. It's not worth the effort. The general consensus on here is that Martin's advice is out of date and the better plan is just to ignore the clowns. By ignoring them, you are not opening up a dialogue with them, and you are denying them the information they need regarding the identity of the driver.

carnation66

bluewatermad wrote: »

On saturday we and thousands of other people decended on Bluewater, we drove around for about 30 minutes looking for a space, all to no avail. We eventually came across, at the end of a parking lane, a marked area covered in what can be described as white chevrons across it. There was no signs sayng no parking, none painted in this area, they were white line not yellow or red and when parked we was not obstructing the traffic, we was totally inside this marked area. After seven hours and quite a bit of revenue going into the Bluewater shops, we came out to a parking ticket from PCM for "parking out of bay". If I am in the wrong I will pay, but reading the latest MSE it tells me not to pay but the info does not quite cover the parking area I was in. Any advice would be greatfully received.

My story is pretty much the same as 'Bluewatermad'. The only difference being when returning to my car I noticed a blue sign on a pillar near my car warning people where not to park. If I had seen this before I left my car I would have moved. I have never seen any wardens in all the time I have been to Bluewater so I imagine they use CCTV to find people like me and shoot down to put the ticket on. I'm interested to hear how other people got on. Thanks

taffy056

Well this thread is not the place for your question, is this a council ticket or a private one ? Place your answer in the new thread in the main parking forum thanks

carnation66

Thanks taffy056. Mine was not a council ticket, it was issued by PCM of Slough Ltd.

Coupon-mad

carnation66 wrote: »

Thanks taffy056. Mine was not a council ticket, it was issued by PCM of Slough Ltd.

So please read the other stickies, not this irrelevant one. Here's the whole forum for your perusal, this is the last thread you want to look at as it's wasted as a sticky IMHO. Look at the other top threads here and then read some more cases like yours:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=163

You want to read 'PPC letters, what to expect' and 'welcome, please read before posting'. Once you have seen the letters and watched the Watchdog link, you will know it's all a scam and that you must ignore the 'ticket' and letters from debt collectors.

NO REPLIES HERE PLEASE. START A NEW THREAD IF YOU STILL NEED TO.



CAN THIS STICKY BE CLOSED OR UNSTICKIED PLEASE? IT ISN'T USEFUL, TA.

mike-parks

I found a great site to help save money on those dreaded airport parking spaces. It's called iwantparking dot com
You put in your dates and it gives you comparisons of all the available parking providers at that airport.

You get a real choice with details about all the various options, and best of all it's free!

All the main UK airports are covered, it's very simple and straight forward and I highly reccommend it

AMO

The worst ones to fall into are the Controlled Zone ones that are listed in the article coupled with parking bays within the Controlled Zone.

The Controlled Zones in Leicester have dates slotted into them for match days.

On one dark evening I drove into a Controlled Zone to park at a bay to go to the hospital to visit my auntie. I got a ticket.

The bay sign said 'No loading sign (yellow) Mon - Fri 7:30am - 9:30am and 4:00pm - 6:00pm'
A second sign said 'Parking 9:30am - 4:00pm 1 Hour, No Return Within 1 Hour'
The bays are on single yellow lines.


I went at 7pm in the evening on a weekday. Prior to the Controlled Zone, 7pm would have been free. After the controlled zone, on a match day, if today's date was put up in the early hours of that day, then I would get a parking ticket.



My argument was that when I parked there, I had no idea that I was in a controlled zone and that I obeyed the rules of the parking bay.

My main argument ultimately was this point:

“12.4 All designated parking places and loading bays within a type (a) CPZ, other than parking meter bays, need to be signed in accordance with section 7 (see para 12.23 for disc or ticket parking). The times of operation, where not continuous, are always shown on the sign, even where they are the same as those shown on the zone entry sign. To omit times from the sign indicates that a parking place or loading bay operates at all times. Where the parking bays operate for a shorter period than the CPZ (e.g. the CPZ operates from 8am to 6pm, and the parking bays from 10am to 4pm), a sign to diagram 639.1B should be used (see paras 7.30 to 7.32). This is because the waiting restrictions are different from those at the entry sign, i.e. they do not apply when the parking bay is operational. This also ensures that drivers are aware of all restrictions.”

which basically states that so that drivers are aware of all the restrictions at the parking bay, that the CPZ restrictions must match the parking bay restrictions.

However, LCC's main argument is that they are bum chums with the Secretary Of State and dealt this lofty hand:

“Traffic signs are prescribed in the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002. However, there is a procedure for the Secretary of State for Transport to grant approval for a specific sign or scheme of signing. Once this approval is granted, the signs become legal and the regulations and directions 2002 or its predecessor documents do not apply.
The authorization outweighs the regulations.”

Basically, they threw down their ace.

However, I requested this document and the only clause with any weight in it is:


“6. No person (except for residents parking permit holders – Area B parking wholly in the parking bays lined to diagram 1028.3 variant and signed to diagram 660 variant of the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002) shall cause or permit a vehicle to wait or load or unload between the hours of 10am and 11pm on match days or other event days on any roads or lengths of road specified in Schedule 1 to this Order other than on the instruction of a police officer or traffic warden.”

It doesn't say anywhere in the document that the document signed by the Secretary of State overrules/overrides the authority of the Traffic Signs Regulations Regulations, the General Directions 2002 or the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984.

I took this issue to the Independent Tribunal and he said that he'd need to investigate this further to determine who was right.

However, because Leicester City Council didn't follow procedure correctly I had already won as there was a procedural impropriety and so the adjudicator wasn't interested in pursuing the other issue to get me an answer.

Anyway, if Leicester City Council can't get do their signs clearly like other councils do (where they add just simple things such as a sign that says 'No parking on Match Days' which at least gives the driver a fighting chance to look around for other information to determine whether its a match day) then one day, they may find that they may have to do a whole load of refunds for the past 5 years. I believe this is something they've had to do in the past.



But definately watch out for Controlled Zones which have parking bays inside that give you no idea that there are also Controlled Zone restrictions that may or not be in place with a council that believes it is above the law.

AMO

By the way, more people are likely to fall into the above Car Parking Bay / Controlled Zone outside the Leicester Royal Infirmary now that parking charges inside the infirmary are likely to rise:
http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/Leicester-s-hospitals-risk-backlash-soaring/story-13062357-detail/story.html