Grounds for appeal?

DontTakeThat

Had a PCN a few days ago, but from what I remember of the instance concerned I'd only paused momentarily on some double yellows because I was trying to find a particular small shop and it would have been dangerous to do so whilst driving. I found the shop then parked legally just down the road. Simples. Sadly, in that short moment a drive-by camera went past me.

It's abundantly clear from the photo that the brake light is on, showing I was still in the car with the ignition on.

Have I the grounds to appeal, or is making a 15-second safety stop in fact illegal? I thought that's what red routes were introduced to prevent, not yellows.

Coupon-mad

You can win this but expect the Council to play a game of bluff at first. So forget the 'discounted penalty' as you won't be paying that!

I suspect the Council will refuse the first appeal and probably the formal appeal after Notice to Owner, force it to adjudication then pull out before the hearing. Would love to see if I am right. If it goes to adjudication you should win anyway and only ever risk possibly being told to pay the full penalty (no costs).

But the odds are in your favour as most people win at adjudication.

Post a pic of all pages of your postal PCN here in a new topic:

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

Register and start a new topic with pictures (as per the pepipoo FAQs 'how to post pictures') and you won't look back.

Here's some info to start you off with ideas on what you can include in your appeal letters:

http://notomob.co.uk/discussions/index.php?topic=867.0

As you will see from that link, this comes from a Report showing previous successful appeals against camera-issued PCNs and also the final sentence is relevant as it's a quote from the Chief Parking Adjudicator saying that a very brief stop should not be considered a contravention anyway. Copy & paste the useful points of appeal you could use and move the whole query to pepipoo to continue this through the stages of appeal for you. They can help you with your appeal letter at this stage and in the future, if you start it off as a draft.

It is not illegal for a camera car to issue a PCN to a stopped car (even with engine on and driver in, it still counts as parked) but it is appealable!

Good luck.

give_them_FA

The trouble with camera enforcement is that it fails to show the full picture. There must be 1,001 reasons why for reasons of road safety (driving situations) you had to make a stop. This cyber-enforcement is an appalling indictment of this country and makes it clear that the objective isn't traffic management, but stealth taxation.

DontTakeThat

Well yes. Thanks for your detailed reply @Coupon-mad, but it's all starting to sound a bit labour-intensive and high-risk (i.e. of ending up with the doubled fine), so's I might as well just pay the thing. Which of course would be playing straight into their devious, grasping and potentially unlawful hands. There's an invitation to ask to see the evidence, but you have to ask in writing and it's really ambiguous which address you're supposed to write to. ****ers.

Does it really have to be that complicated? And why the request to post the PCN?

wriggly

DontTakeThat wrote: »

Does it really have to be that complicated? And why the request to post the PCN?

You are free to pay the penalty, if you feel it is easier than appealing. However, 15 minutes to write and post an appeal letter to the council is sometimes all it takes to get a PCN cancelled.

The request for the PCN (with identifying info blocked out) is to allow the knowledgeable members of the forum to evaluate your best course of action, knowing exactly what the PCN says without having to query you repeatedly.

For example, can the PCN be appealed with the clock stopped on the discount period?

benjus

The general trend seems for councils to routinely reject appeals - in my case (similar situation to the OP, but caught by a fixed camera not a CCTV vehicle) they actually replied to my request for further images by sending a rejection of my "representations" (as well as the images). That's forming the basis of my appeal to the adjudicator.

I really hope the adjudicators start to penalize councils who send out spurious PCNs and routinely reject appeals, knowing that a lot of people will just pay up to get the reduced penalty and avoid the uncertainty of an appeal to the adjudicator. I know they can award costs against the councils if they believe they have acted wholly unreasonably, but I don't know how much this is actually done.

DontTakeThat

Update:

I decided to take up the offer on the PCN to ask to see their evidence. This was sufficient to generate an email stating "[FONT=&quot]Due to a technical error we are unable to proceed with this charge". :T

I'd had to phone Parking Services to find out how to apply for the evidence as it was incredibly ambiguous in their letter. I spoke to a surprisingly pleasant chap who very quickly went into a kind of heard-it-all-before resignation to the idea that this one would have to be dropped.

I thought I was in for a fight, but it seems just a gentle prod to these charges makes them collapse. I'll spare you more smileys but I'm so chuffed I wanted to put them all in!

Great to have the moral support of this forum. More power to you guys!
[/FONT]

give_them_FA

Another happy ending! Half the time these robber councils know they are in the wrong and rely on people giving up and paying- like you seemed to want to on your second post....

If THEY had to pay for incorrectly issued/successfully appealed tickets, you can bet they would take a LOT more care....

Well done for NOT TAKING IT!

Stephen_Leak

Well done. But, what was the "technical error"?

bargepole

Stephen_Leak wrote: »

Well done. But, what was the "technical error"?

They won't tell you what it was, but you can bet their "evidence" is so flimsy it would never stand up if challenged.

Council PCNs, and for that matter speeding NIPs, do sometimes have a habit of being found to have technical errors once it becomes clear that the victim isn't going to roll over and cough up £60 into their stealth tax fund.

Stephen_Leak

This reminds me of when I was a Civil Servant. In the days before computers and you dictated letters over the phone to the typing pool.

Somehow, I sent one out with an incorrect telephone number on it. I drafted my letters, checked them and then read them to the typists, so I was confident that I'd used the correct number and the problem was due to a typo'.

So, I dictated, "Due to an unfortunate typing error, the wrong telephone number was used ..."

The letter came back, "Due to an unfortunate clerical error, the wrong telephone number was used ..."

I signed and sent it. I know when I'm beaten.