Is there a place for private parking enforcement?

s555

ManxRed wrote: »

Let's take this one at a time. If a private car park operator chooses to operate a car park with no barrier and just pay and display then they need to accept that there may be a small proportion of abuse and accept this. In the same way any business will make a provision for bad debt in its accounts.

I do not, and have never, condoned taking the p*ss out of a P&D car park or any other car park, so 'in my world' I would NOT do this, nor laugh at any follow up letters. Not a lot of people on here condone depriving landowners of genuine service charges for parking. You'll struggle to find posts on here doing this, but feel free to have a go. So that's out the window.

The legal proceedings, in which they cannot claim for more than the damages incurred isn't in 'my world' its the real world, so forget that argument.

Small claims are designed so that legal people are generally not required to prepare cases, so there shouldn't in theory be many additional costs. The small claims court system is designed to enable the common man to bring appropriate claims without resorting to enormous legal costs. This principle has worked for years. There would be few additional costs of bringing a claim, but as I say any sensible company - knowing that the abuse may be relatively insignificant - might just write this off.

I agree there is little deterrent, perhaps that's all we agree on.

So, is there a place for private parking enforcement?

My answer is yes, but not in the hands of profit making organisations, it should be set up similar to council patrolled schemes on council land, possibly enforced by the council too.

I see no place in modern society for PPCs in any shape or form.

I hope I've made that clear, but I suspect more smart alec comments and assumptions are on the way...

I think the problem with parking "offences", unlike murdering, mugging and stealing, is that there is very little moral deterrent against breaking the rules. I don't go out mugging people due to my moral code, not because I fear the punishment.

Parking on the other hand: If I felt I could get away with overstaying my welcome in a car park, not paying at all, or parking generally where I shouldn't, I possibly would. As would many millions of others, I am sure.

So, the deterrent is the key with parking.

Let's look at this another way.

If it costs a car park owner £200 a week to "police" his car park, to prevent the odd p*ss taker, and £200 doesn't get you very much these days, how would he recoup that cost?

He has a choice. Put the cost of parking up for all of those that followed the rules (and possibly then encourage more p*ss taking) or spread that £200 across all of those that infringe. Let's say 5 people infringe a week, he then charges them £40 each plus the parking they didn't pay for. That seems fairer than charging everyone else.

He cannot just ignore the p*ss takers, as once you give an inch you give a mile, within weeks the p*ss takers will have told all of their mates about a new "free" car park and the p*ss takers will increase in numbers.

This model of charging/suing for costs of enforcement is adopted in many shops, where they sue shop lifters for a contribution towards the cost of fitting CCTV and employing security guards etc. They argue that if the shop lifter didn't exist, they wouldn't have that cost.

I think it is slightly naive to imagine the car park owner as some sole trader that will prepare his own court papers on the kitchen table after the kids have gone to sleep and incur no costs.

The reality is that the likes of NCP and other major land owners will have a legal team to deal with the hundreds or thousands of "infringements" they see each week, and will therefore have significant costs associated with that part of their operation. They cannot just write all of them off. As I said earlier, if they don't enforce, people wont pay.

The sole trader, assuming he actually exists in all of this, in reality, cannot be ar*ed with all of that agro about parking and enforcement, so he subs the job out to the infamous PCCs.

The PCCs, of course, don't do it for love and in many cases aren't very nice about it at all.

So, going back to many pages back as well as your recent comments, I think we do therefore agree that parking enforcement is required. We also agree that we do not like how it is done at the moment by the PCCs.

I would add that despite the PCC schemes being morally dubious, I do not believe any laws are being broken. This goes back to my previous comments that the current laws do not help anyone. We need new legislation that protects both the driver and the land owner.

I actually suggested a while back that enforcement is handled by the council. Someone rubbished that idea.

My only issue with the council schemes is that they are often subbed out themselves. Run by the likes of NCP. If you are trying to tell me they don't make a profit out of it, I would ask you why they bother bidding for the contract.

And if it is already OK to sub out the council parking scheme to NCP and others, why not have NCP patrol private land under the same rules and laws?

Which brings us full circle. Private enforcement does not equal scam. The current laws allow the scammers to operate. Change the law, keep it fair, and allow the private sector to actually ENFORCE rather than attempt to enforce through threats.

esmerobbo

Of course NCP or NSL as it would be if acting for a council make a profit for supplying CEO's what they state is that they don't make a profit from the actual ticket.

On the other hand if they didn't issue enough no doubt they would lose the contract!

ManxRed

You see, you've made an assumption about councils subbing out the council tickets. I agree there must be some money in it somewhere otherwise why do they tender for it, but we both need to understand that model before we could glibly apply it to a PPC.

For example, a council will have costs associated with CEOs wages and so on. Presumably if a private company can do this cheaper then they will split the difference and that forms the private company's profits. However the fees paid by the council may not be based on the number of tickets issued.

I don't know, I'm speculating. If you know, tell us. But without this information we cannot simply say that the current PPC model is similar or equivalent.

For a start, the PPC model is based on number of tickets issued. This is inherently what is wrong. It leads to ticketing of innocent motorists and all manner of scams to get the profits up.

This is where the problem lies. I know that councils do set targets, but in an ideal world they should not, and if any third party is contracted to patrol on their behalf then this should not be dependent on number of tickets issued either.

By all means change the law, and keep it fair. But it SHOULD NOT be private profit making organisations running it. The temptation to scam will never go away. We know they are untrustworthy (and I would say they DO break the law under the current regime, particularly with Unfair Contract Terms and Administration of Justice Acts), so why the hell give them legislation to back their scams? It'll just get worse.

I'm sorry, but the more you post, the more you come across as having some kind of vested interest in the success of PPCs.

27col

OP, you seem to have missed the point somewhere. PPC's are not there to provide a parking service in the car park, they are there to make money for themselves. They provide no real service whatsoever. All their "rules and supposed infringements" are merely so that they can ask you to pay them some money. It would not be in their financial interest for car owners to park perfectly every time. They actually want you to infringe their spurious rules so they can generate some revenue for themselves.

s555

27col wrote: »

OP, you seem to have missed the point somewhere. PPC's are not there to provide a parking service in the car park, they are there to make money for themselves. They provide no real service whatsoever. All their "rules and supposed infringements" are merely so that they can ask you to pay them some money. It would not be in their financial interest for car owners to park perfectly every time. They actually want you to infringe their spurious rules so they can generate some revenue for themselves.

I used to say the same about the safety camera partnerships. The local bodies set up to spend some of the local speeding fine revenue on more cameras and education.

I always argued that their existence relied on them being unsuccessful in deterring drivers from speeding.

I think the problem with the current system is that, as is my understanding, the PPC pays the land owner for the privilege of policing the land. In exchange they get to keep the "fines".

This, of course, means that the PPC has no interest whatsoever in being successful at preventing "offences".

This is clearly a system that invites corruption. Very easily solved, outlaw this model. Make the land owner pay a rate no lower than cost for the services of the PPC. If he has a real parking problem, he wont mind. If he doesn't have a parking problem, he wont bother.

s555

ManxRed wrote: »

For a start, the PPC model is based on number of tickets issued. This is inherently what is wrong. It leads to ticketing of innocent motorists and all manner of scams to get the profits up.


I'm sorry, but the more you post, the more you come across as having some kind of vested interest in the success of PPCs.

I'm not sure that many are truly innocent. Take the example of a car park with limited stay, policed by ANPR.

I don't think anyone that is ticketed in this scenario is "innocent". The computer is not lying (it may be made to do so, I admit). In these cases, it should really be a fair cop. The rules HAVE been broken. However this was enforced, even by the council, a ticket is due.

But, where they go wrong is that the "fine" is disproportionate (£150 for 10 minutes over stay) or the "rules" were not made clear at the start due to lack of appropriate signage.

I realise that there are many cases where someone parked on a white line and got ticketed or parked with the bonnet slightly outside of the box etc. These all seem unjust, but where do you draw the line (pardon the pun). You cannot have thousands of parking warden drones all using their own judgement, the rules have to be absolute and if it isn't 1 inch over the line for a ticket, maybe it would be 2 inches or 3 inches. There is always going to be someone who is 1mm over the limit and feels hard done by. This is exactly the same as speeding, one tenth of a mile per hour over the fine threshold and you get the brown envelope.

I really don't have an interest in the commercial success of any parking company. I would prefer not to have to pay to visit shops or use the station car park. But I also appreciate that by having a scheme whereby people pay by the hour, or their stay is limited, it ensures that I am more likely to find a space when I want one, and for that I am willing to pay.

ManxRed

So, in relation to ANPR monitored sites, you're not familiar with the first in- last out scam? Or the tickets issued for overstaying by a matter of minutes when clearly those 'minutes' could be explained away easily by the amount of time looking for a space, parking, and then driving out again? Or where there are two entrances to a car park, one with ANPR and one without?

All frequently recounted on these and other fora. Still think there are no innocent motorists receiving tickets in ANPR sites? In that case our conversation is over because nothing I say will matter to your opinion.

As for the council enforcing things such as being parked 1mm over a white line, are you familiar with the term 'de minimis'? Frequently used to defeat council tickets of a similar nature, and doubtless perfectly applicable to any council-run scheme on private land. A PPC wouldn't factor this in however - they're just after your money.

tom9980

s555 wrote: »

I'm not sure that many are truly innocent. Take the example of a car park with limited stay, policed by ANPR.

I don't think anyone that is ticketed in this scenario is "innocent". The computer is not lying (it may be made to do so, I admit). In these cases, it should really be a fair cop. The rules HAVE been broken. However this was enforced, even by the council, a ticket is due.

Total rubbish! why you ask? because common sense hasn't been followed. There actually needs to be a problem with car parking in the first instance!! a lot of places have no parking issue but have these scam companies in place.

In my partners case she went to a retail park that does not have a parking problem at all despite being near to the train station, even on Saturday at least 30 spaces are available. There is no parking problem at all!

Despite this Euro car parks gave her a ticket for staying 40 minutes too long despite the fact she was in a restaurant and had been in the other stores on the site as a paying customer. A 90 minute limit is insane is it not?

There has been no loss to the PPC or to the stores in this case and i believe there never can be a loss on this site, so no PPC or counter measure is required other than a pretend fake sign maybe.

What it has achieved though is me telling everyone about the stupidity of the situation and the scam nature of the PPC model. Not to mention never ever shopping at the site EVER again. Shame for the stores really because she met her friend there every couple of months, now they pay to park in town and go somewhere else.

27col

The amount of the parking charge is irrelevant, the PPC has only put the rules in place so that they can charge if they perceive them to be broken. Not so they will help in the application of orderly parking. They do not have the slightest interest in the parking being orderly. They only have an interest in trumping up fictitious offences.
I seriously doubt that the shops employing them get anything more than minimum payment from the PPC, if that much.

s555

tom9980 wrote: »

Total rubbish! why you ask? because common sense hasn't been followed. There actually needs to be a problem with car parking in the first instance!! a lot of places have no parking issue but have these scam companies in place.

In my partners case she went to a retail park that does not have a parking problem at all despite being near to the train station, even on Saturday at least 30 spaces are available. There is no parking problem at all!

Despite this Euro car parks gave her a ticket for staying 40 minutes too long despite the fact she was in a restaurant and had been in the other stores on the site as a paying customer. A 90 minute limit is insane is it not?

There has been no loss to the PPC or to the stores in this case and i believe there never can be a loss on this site, so no PPC or counter measure is required other than a pretend fake sign maybe.

What it has achieved though is me telling everyone about the stupidity of the situation and the scam nature of the PPC model. Not to mention never ever shopping at the site EVER again. Shame for the stores really because she met her friend there every couple of months, now they pay to park in town and go somewhere else.

I'm not saying it is fair or sensible. All I am saying is that in many cases, this being one of them, the "offence" of overstay was a fair cop.

I have in the past been given a council parking ticket for parking for one hour and 15 minutes in a one hour limit parking bay. At that particular time, there were plenty of other spaces, but obviously someone, for some reason, decided one hour was the limit.

I knew the limit was one hour, I have parked there many times before, but I got distracted and thought it wouldn't matter, I didn't see any traffic wardens about etc etc.

I got caught and I paid up. Why did I pay up? Mostly because the charge, £35 I think it was, was not unreasonable and secondly because I had nobody to blame but myself.

I keep coming back to this argument, but if the offence is valid and the penalty is fair, I don't see what the problem is with paying it.