Parking ticket - Wife pulled over sick

aguynameddarryl

Hi guys,

Wife is 6 months pregnant, pulled into a retail park she was passing as she was sick because of the heat. Retail park was closed as it was past 4 on a Sunday, but the car park was still open.

Took her a long time to compose herself to drive again - understandable, I'm sure if any pregnant ladies or mothers present!

Got a note through from Parking Eye addressed to me as the reg'd owner, stating I'd overstayed.

I wrote to them explaining that I was not the driver and that the car was pulled in because of the heat and illness and that the driver has since been signed off because of the heat in pregnancy. Of course that's now been rejected.

Any point in appealling it? I've provisionally knocked this together...


I am writing to reject the above charge on a number ofgrounds. Firstly, I was not the driver in question on this day.



My wife, who is six months pregnant with our first child,was in this vehicle at this time and had it pulled over into an empty retailpark because she was feeling very poorly. Bearing in mind that the retail parkwas closed at this time, she felt she was doing the best thing for allconcerned – getting off the road in as safe a manner as possible, while notaffecting other road users or businesses.



As I have stated, my wife is very pregnant at this time andwe are regular users of this car park, spending a considerable sum of money atxxxxxxxxx and also the xxxxxxxxx store. In light of this charge, we shallbe considering cancelling our outstanding orders at xxxxxxxx and purchasingour xxxxxxxx from other suppliers. I have provided the managers of bothstores copies of this letter and the parking charge notice.



Furthermore, no contract can exist between ParkingEye andthe driver as there was no consideration. As per Common Law Stilk v Myrick, where there is noconsideration, there can be no contract. Consideration must be acknowledgedand, per Currie v Misa, consideration should also constitute a detrimentto one party, the driver in this instance, in order to convey the benefit –as there is no requirement to pay for a ticket, nor even display one,consideration cannot be considered acknowledged, nor has a detriment flowedfrom the driver to either yourselves or the owners of the car park.



Additionally, were a contract to exist between the driver(which is denied) there has been no loss to ParkingEye or the owners/managersof the retail park arising from the alleged overstay; accordingly the chargesought is an unenforceable contractual penalty.




Should ParkingEye choose instead to claim that the charge isan agreed contractual charge (contrary to the wording in your notice) thisfails on the grounds that –



(i) it is clearly punitive and intended as a deterrent, inthat it only (allegedly) became payable upon the breach of other terms in thealleged contract;



(ii) no means of payment was available at the time thecharge allegedly fell due, and;



(iii) no VAT invoice was issued. Accordingly it is clearly apenalty and therefore unenforceable. Furthermore no terms of the allegedcontract are individually negotiated, and the terms create a serious imbalanceto the benefit of the company and the detriment of the consumer. Clearly, then,the terms of the alleged contract fall foul of the Unfair Terms in ConsumerContracts Regulations 1999.



I look forward to hearing back from you in due course.

wiogs

No point in sending that letter. Do a search on here for the correct way to deal with these people, plenty of good advice here and on pepipoo

zzzLazyDaisy

Is the vehicle registered to an RK who lives in Scotland?

Who was the parking company?

Date of parking incident?

Date of issue of PCN and date you received it?

How long is the normal time allowed and how long was the overstay (possible grace period point)

When did you send your first letter? Did you expressly state that you wished to appeal or challenge the charge, or was it more of a letter by way of explanation?

Give us something to go on and we will help you draft a letter.

Daisy

What did the PPC's reply say (ie was it a template/generic letter or did it actually address the points you had made in your letter?

You do need to send a reply to the PPC, making it clear that this is an appeal, and if rejected you want a POPLA verification code.

You also need to make it clear that, as a pregnant lady, your wife has Equality Act protection.

aguynameddarryl

RK is in England.

Parking Eye.

Haven't got exact dates to hand but was within 14 days of "offence".

Did say that I wished to challenge the charge.

PE have replied with what looks like and identikit reply giving me a Popla number. Didn't address any points, just that it's been rejected. Have called them today querying why this has been sent to me - I've advised them I'm not the driver.

Wife's very jittery and thinks it's best just to pay and get rid of it.

Iceweasel

Your perfectly correct and reasoned setting out of the mitigating circumstances will certainly fall on deaf ears as you are NOT dealing with reasonable people.

Their sole reason for existence is to fleece as much cash as they can irrespective of the circumstances.

You can only beat them using the legal system - logical discussion is a total waste of time.

Please, please do NOT pay them.

Every new poster comes on here innocently thinking the same as you and your wife.

You can reassure her that it can be defeated, but only if you follow the correct procedure in the exact order that the folks on here will suggest based on thousands of similar cases.

jwsiharris

I'm a diabetic and once, after having a hypo in a supermarket car park, sat in my car for quite a while in order to do what I had to do and get my blood sugar levels back to normal. I didn't even realise I'd overstayed my time limit so was shocked when I got the fine through but I replied explaining what had happened, bit of legal stuff about how unsafe to drive when in that state and, most importantly, a copy of a letter from my diabetic clinic which proved I was a diabetic. They wrote back very quickly and said the fine was dismissed. To be honest anyone could write in to them and say what you've said so you need to send something in, clinic appt card, letter from dr which mentions her complications. They should already have frozen the fine to give you time to respond and appeal.

zzzLazyDaisy

aguynameddarryl wrote: »

PE have replied with what looks like and identikit reply giving me a Popla number. Didn't address any points, just that it's been rejected..

Okay that is fairly normal - the PPCs do tend to refuse appeals, and you have got what you need from them, and that is a code to appeal to POPLA. There is a strict time limit for this, so you do need to get onto the next stage.

What date was the letter giving you the POPLA code?

So was the appeal you posted intended to be a POPLA appeal? IN which case my apologies, I misunderstood.

You have made a start, but you are missing a lot of important points, and including some that are not relevant.

Go to the POPLA decisions thread (first thread at the top of this forum) start with the most recent posts and work backwards. You will soon see that the winning appeals all follow a pattern. Have another go at preparing a POPLA appeal leaving out all the stuff about not shopping there again etc as frankly neither the PPC nor POPLA cares about that. Post your appeal here - making it clear that is a POPLA appeal, and someone will help you finalise it.

Daisy

zzzLazyDaisy

I have PM'd you.

Daisy

aguynameddarryl

Thanks LazyDaisy - Have finally found out who actually OWNS the retail park and contacted them, explained the situation and they'll instruct PE to cancel the ticket. Common sense prevailing???

Very much appreciate your help though!

zzzLazyDaisy

YAY!!! Well done, and thanks for coming back to let us know the outcome! :j

aguynameddarryl

Thank you for your help!