Automatic Number Plate Readers in Car Parks

TomWantsToGoTraveling

I got a FPN through the post when I stopped in a car park for 20 mins to wait for someone. The car park had an automatic number plate reading camera that reads the car reg details when the car enters and leaves the car park. However it did not take into consideration that I did not get out of the car.

The car park can argue that I am taking up a space.
However I maintain that the car was occupied and therefore not parked so there was no need to purchase a ticket.

I have been asked to provide further evidence to support my claim but the only evidence I have that I was waiting for someone is my wife as there is no CCTV in the area.

What to do?

esmerobbo

Is this a council car park? Have you really received a FPN?

You don't need to exit a car for it too be parked!

The way to deal with it depends on who it is from!

Coupon-mad

TomWantsToGoTraveling wrote: »

I got a FPN through the post when I stopped in a car park for 20 mins to wait for someone. The car park had an automatic number plate reading camera that reads the car reg details when the car enters and leaves the car park. However it did not take into consideration that I did not get out of the car.

The car park can argue that I am taking up a space.
However I maintain that the car was occupied and therefore not parked so there was no need to purchase a ticket.

I have been asked to provide further evidence to support my claim but the only evidence I have that I was waiting for someone is my wife as there is no CCTV in the area.

What to do?

1. What has not getting out of the car got to do with anything? It hasn't and whether this was Council or private you will get nowhere pretending that an occupied car isn't 'parked'. If you relied on that in London you'd be sent a PCN every day!

2. To learn what POPLA is, read the sticky threads at the top of the forum too, as well as some Parking Eye or Excel/Peel Centre or Highview threads.

3. It is not a Fixed Penalty Notice. Not a fine, not a real one. FPN = Police. Penalty Charge Notice = Council. Parking Charge Notice = scam fake PCN.

4. Start by reading any Parking Eye or Excel/Peel Centre or Highview thread on here that's about sending an appeal and winning at POPLA. Not threads about court nor ones about debt collector letters, no need to panic because neither of these will apply to you if you appeal and win at POPLA like everyone else here does.

5. If (as we suspect) this was a private (retail or similar) car park and not a Council ticket then you'd learn what to do simply by reading pretty much any other thread on the first pages of this parking forum.

Unless this was in Scotland, you appeal as the registered keeper, not saying who the driver was (unless you already have - which you shouldn't have done). And read other threads to see how to word a winning POPLA appeal (and it will not win if you write what you just wrote above!). If you have already appealed and been asked by Parking Eye or Excel or Highview (I would guess PE) for 'further evidence' then send them a copy of your wife's receipt and ask that it is cancelled as you are about to email a complaint to the CEO of the retailer and no clear signs were seen that communicated to you that you could not stop to collect a passenger who was a genuine patron spending money at the retail park; assuming it was a retail park.

6. Send a complaint to the Retail Park or CEO of the Supermarket, or go and see the Store Manager in person anyway to get it cancelled (don't wait to complain).