Council Car Park.. paid, got ticket and then fined!!

majorstare

My wife paid to park in a council run carpark and diplayed the ticket in the windscreen.
Took kids out of car (8yrs & 3yrs), wrapped them up in coats and went shopping.

Returned to car within time limit and there's a fine on the windscreen of £25.00 for no ticket:mad:

The ticket was on the car footwell, it must have blown there when my wife was getting the kids sorted. So we took a photocopy of the ticket and appealed. The council wrote back saying my wife should have checked the ticket was clearly displayed in the car when leaving. The fine is now £50.:mad::mad:

If my wife hadn't paid for a ticket, I would have paid.

We can appeal again but the fine will be £75 if we loose. :mad:

I find this unreasonable.

Any advise?

Coupon-mad

The Council would say that wouldn't they? It is par for the course for Councils to decline the first informal appeal but it DOES NOT mean you haven't got a case!

Personally I always say on here that I would appeal ANY Council PCN to the adjudicator, with the help of pepipoo.com forums. Link to the right board below, post up a picture of the front & back of that PCN (all small print - see their stickies for how to post pics and other forum rules):

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showforum=30

Anyway having seen this 'fluttering ticket' issue questioned by other posters in the past I recalled reading a Parking Adjudicators' Annual Report which went into detail about sticky tickets, so I've searched and found it here. Are you sitting comfortably? Read this:

http://www.manchester.gov.uk/egov_do...eport_2006.pdf

Reading the comments on there headed 'the requirement continuously to display', 'sticky tickets' and - further down - 'the Council's discretion to cancel the PCN' I think you have two lines of argument.

The first thing will be to view a copy of the Parking Places Order for that car park and see what the Order says about whether you have to just 'display' or whether the onus is on the motorist to continuously display. Read first, what the link above says about that under 'the requirement continuously to display'. I skim-read it and it's clear that cases have turned upon the wording of individual Orders.

You can see 'your' Order just by asking in person or emailing the Council for it - you don't have to say why you want to see this as it's a public document and they have to make it available without undue delay. I always reckon it's best NOT to mention the PCN either, you don't want the Council thinking your request for the Order is another stage of the appeal.

Your second line of argument is the stickiness of the ticket was inadequate, making it not fit for purpose. You paid for it, you produced a copy of that ticket at informal appeal, but the lack of stickiness caused it to fall down (through no fault of your own). If you read the 'sticky tickets' part of the link, you'll see that if the Council don't address an appeal calling into question the suitability of the sticky glue used then adjudicators have found in motorists' favour.

Councils have to reply to all points of appeal received within the deadlines - so you could always send in another informal appeal this week to badger them and in the hope they don't address it (works in your favour later on...).

I hope you kept the actual sticky ticket and sent them a copy only?

Anyway, get emailing for the Order and get posting on pepipoo to see if they think a second informal appeal right now might be a good idea. Even if they reckon you should wait for the next stage (Notice to Owner) then they will give you some valuable advice once they have seen the PCN (both sides). And don't leave your thread, bump it for replies when you need help and show them the Order when it arrives - there's a special way to attach links to Traffic Orders I think.

HTH and good luck, this is winnable IMHO. Did you know most cases to adjudicators win or the Council do not defend?

Pearly11

Very good advice in here. I had that scenario yesterday in Gateshead. The ticket flipped over (my son and I believe due to the unavoidable turbulence caused during the action of shutting the door of the vehicle.) The ticket is of the 'non-sticky' type and therefore not really fit for its purpose. I've opened a thread about what happened in more detail. Today I've spent hours of researching and studying physical forces lol. I feel such a geek right now :-)

Pearly11

Hi majorstare, I just posted this rather lengthy post into the pepipoo forum. As I mentioned yesterday (above) my son and I have a similar problem. So I did a lot of research on the matter and perhaps some of my findings will come in handy in your defence. But be warned: It's quite bizarre, long and has a few typos in it :-):

My son and I have a similar problem, perhaps you read about it here and in the Moneysaver forum. And this explanation of mine might bore you or some a little bit, but here are my findings and how knows...it may help in your defence:

Two days ago we purchased a ticket on a P & D parking facility in Gateshead, displayed the ticket (non-sticky variety) correctly on the dash board, shut the doors and both made sure the ticket was afterwards still correctly displayed. Then we went on a shopping spree and returned to the vehicle about three times to load some shopping into it. On one of these occasions, we believe the ticket was moved due to the turbulence caused by shutting a car door or opening it. Each action will inevitably lead to some sort of air movement inside the vehicle as it is a confined and nearly air tight space and if you close an airtight space off, then some air has got to escape from the confined space. Otherwise it would be impossible to close any confined space as the air would eventually becomes so dense that it could be called 'solid'. On opening an airtight space you inevitably create a suction which again causes air movement. These are laws of physics and I had this verified yesterday by two physists.

I have also found out that an average type of office paper weighs 80 grams per squaremeter, this translates into an A4 sheet weighing only 5 grams. A parking ticket is considerably smaller than an A4 sheet and I found it impossible to weigh it with house hold scales.

According to the Beaufort Scale created in 1807 it requests a Moderate Breeze to move a small piece of paper. On this scale, which is still in use, a Moderate Breeze is a wind movement of 20 - 28 Kilometres per hous or 5.5 - 7.9 metres per second. Shutting or opening a car door or a closing of any confined space, however, creates a turbulence which is a lot more than needs for a small piece of paper to be moved. Somewhat like a mild tornado force. I have actually put the ticket on my desk and just very gently breathed on it and 'hey presto' it lifted off the desk. You may want to try the same.


After contacting my council I was informed that the phenomenon of non-sticky parking tickets to move is unheard of by them. This however, can't be correct, as the back of our ticket actually reads: DISPLAY OTHER SIDE! You will be eligable for a penalty charge if you display your ticket this way up! It is also decorated with huge red cross. Now, what I found out about the note at the back so far is: I have agreed to a contract BEFORE the ticket was in my hands, so whatever may appear on its back is irrelevant as nothing can be added to a contract AFTER an agreement was entered. The relevant department of my council claiming that they haver heard of this phenomenon is a load of rubbish. First of all, there'd be no point at all to actually mention something about which way round to display a ticket, if they don't already know that they do have tendency to become airborne and secondly, there is actually a term for it and it's called 'The Fluttering Ticket'. The term is mentioned in an official document called 'The joint Report of the Parking Adjudicators for England and Wales 2006' and somewhere here in this forum there is a link to the PDF file.

What I also found out is the council are actually expecting to comply with their rule, but WITHOUT providing the necessary tools to do it with. This being e.g. sticky tickets. In says in the Report I mentioned: 'When operating a p&d scheme the council must provide drivers with adequate means to comply with the obligation imposed'. And a non-sticky ticket is therefore inadequate for its purpose.

I am not sure if my verbal diarrhhoe will help you in your defence, but I sincerely hope some of it can be of some help and if not to you then perhaps to others.

Pearly :-)

Oh...and I forgot to mention that the council actually didn't LOSE any money as a ticket was purchased and evidence of this has been and be provided.