Parking fine for sleeping at South Mimms Welcome Break Services (ParkingEYE)

bod1467

Not this old chestnut again!

If the vehicle is stationary (stopped, not moving) for a reasonable period of time (several minutes plus IMO) then it is parked. It matters not whether the vehicle has occupants during that period.

duchy

Bit like parking on a double yellow line and crawling in the back for a snooze ?

spikyone

bod1467 wrote: »

Not this old chestnut again!

If the vehicle is stationary (stopped, not moving) for a reasonable period of time (several minutes plus IMO) then it is parked. It matters not whether the vehicle has occupants during that period.

Exactly. It's staggering that so many people post here claiming that they weren't parked when they were stopped for a prolonged period. "My vehicle was stopped for 5 hours in a car park while I had a kip, but I wasn't actually parked" must be a new record though - OP, what exactly do you think you were doing if you thought you weren't parked?

I expect the landowner to offer a similar level of sympathy. But the appeal looks OK, PE are unlikely to cancel anyway so all you're trying to do is get a POPLA code. In the meantime, read the Newbies sticky and the POPLA decisions thread so that you're ready when that code arrives.

Stroma

I have yet to see signs where you can read the terms and conditions of parking whilst going past them at 30mph+ in the dark. The point is that I fully endorse parking in these places for free no matter how long you need it! They are there for safety especially at night when you are most likely to fall asleep at the wheel!

And until I came here I didn't even know there was charges like these at motorway services, think it's an absolute disgrace that there are restrictions that go fully against the take a break advice. For me people will be congratulated for putting safety first and parking for as long as they need it!

ampersand

'And until I came here I didn't even know there was charges like these at motorway services'

Exactly, Stroma and I endorse the whole of your post. The Take a Break' sign preceding the slip road drew me in when I realised my eyes were shutting as i drove, if only for a nano-second.
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Also mervin, this won't help you, if 'they' refers to the motorway service area.

'Next time I'll just park on the grass verge or somewhere where they have no cameras!' - because cameras record vehicles on entry and exit.

Mervin321

Is this ok to send to the manager at the services?

RE: Unreasonable penalty charge REF: xxxxx/xxxxxx, Vehicle Reg: xxxx xxx

Dear Sir,

As the registered keeper of this vehicle, I recently received a penalty charge notice from a company named Parking Eye claiming to be representing your service station. The charge alleges that the vehicle was parked in your services car park on Monday 4th August 2014 for 5 hours and 41 minutes between 00:33 and 06:14.

Having been in Germany for the weekend with very little sleep the driver could sense themselves falling asleep and consistently drifting into another lane. The driver and their passenger decided that rather than risk their lives, to “take a break” as the signs on the motorway suggest. They decided to leave the motorway at the next services which happened to be yours.

They were unaware that sleeping in a car for a few hours would result in an absurd penalty charge. They assumed that if they had broken any parking regulations, someone would have knocked on the car window and let them know. This didn’t happen.

Both the driver and their passenger (an HGV driver) are regular customers of your services. They even stopped at your services and spent a significant amount of money on food and drink on the way to the airport a few days earlier.

They had no other option than to sleep at your services and are very unhappy about receiving this letter with what they consider to be a very unreasonable penalty charge. Had there been signs saying “Don’t fall asleep in your vehicle without buying a parking ticket” they would happily have bought a ticket.

At the time the vehicle was one of only a handful of cars in the car park so there would have been no loss of business to Welcome Break whatsoever and any new customers would have had no trouble finding parking spaces.

The highway code refers to the following with regards to sleeping (taking a break) when you are tired:

- avoid undertaking long journeys between midnight and 6 am, when natural alertness is at a minimum
[which happens to be the time of the 'event']

- if you feel at all sleepy, stop in a safe place. Do not stop on the hard shoulder of a motorway
[this leaves little option than stopping at your services]

I would ask that you cancel this penalty charge as a gesture of goodwill and everyone involved will be happy to remain customers of your service stations up and down the country.

If not then this leaves us all little option than to boycott your services and encourage all of our friends and family to do the same. I will also have no option that to pass all of the details to various media outlets that may be interested. Surely you have a duty of care to your visitors and motorway users in general.

I thank you for your time and co-operation.


Merv

Redx

looks ok to me

and I fully endorse what stroma and others have said earlier, these places are rest stops and I do not see any need to punish people for sleeping for a few hours free of charge if the places are deserted and there is no loss to the actual landowner

safety comes before profit , these truck drivers have to use rest stops when the tacho is near the limit, so use the truck side for doing so. I have no idea if its free or not but I believe it should be free for all and its not as if you can nip down the service access road and park on a b road out of the way. they are not motorway exists , an exit could be several miles further on

so an MSA should be exempt from charges on safety grounds and a condition of their trading licenses

trisontana

There was a proposal put forward a couple of years ago by one of the many transport ministers who have been and gone concerning free overnight parking at MSAs . I suppose that was killed by the likes of the BPA and the PPCs.

When you think about it, motorway service areas are just glorified lay-by. You can park there for as long as you like, what's so special about service areas?

Coupon-mad

Personally I would NOT talk about what happened in the complaint to the MSA. Make it much shorter, indignant at the extortionate PCN and not talking about what happened at all. If you look at the latest examples of POPLA appeals for PE I have tweaked the ANPR paragraph to argue that there's no evidence that the car wasn't there twice (double visit). And it's true - there isn't! Unless you go and blow it by taking about what happened to Welcome Break who couldn't give a stuff. MOTO cancel PCNs when people say they fell asleep but not WB.

ampersand

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Personally I would NOT talk about what happened in the complaint to the MSA. Make it much shorter, indignant at the extortionate PCN and not talking about what happened at all. If you look at the latest examples of POPLA appeals for PE I have tweaked the ANPR paragraph to argue that there's no evidence that the car wasn't there twice (double visit). And it's true - there isn't! Unless you go and blow it by taking about what happened to Welcome Break who couldn't give a stuff. MOTO cancel PCNs when people say they fell asleep but not WB.

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Mervin - do exactly as c-m writes.
I highlight the above - you work out why.