Non-English reading/ writing driver gets PCN

canonyau

Hi guys, I am appealing a parking charge notice from Parkingeye on behalf of a friend who does not read or write English. She accidentally parked in a private car park round the back of an Asda, thinking it was an overflow car park, as the Asda car park was full. I have asked her to go back and take pictures of the signs in the car park.

1. Does the driver not being able to read or write English, count towards insufficient signage? Has anyone else had this situation come up before and appealed successfully?

2. Is there any problem with me being neither the driver or the vehicle owner doing the appeal?


Thanks

matttye

Read the newbies sticky thread at the top of the forum and use the standard appeal template. The appeal point that has the most success from what I've seen of these boards is the fact that 99.99999% of parking tickets are not a genuine pre-estimate of loss.

No need to disclose the fact that your friend can't read or write English or that you're writing the appeal on her behalf. You should appeal as keeper, not driver, so need to wait for the notice to keeper to come through.

Tilt

Presumably it's not her car? They pursue the RK anyway who should do the 'appeal'.

spikyone

canonyau wrote: »

1. Does the driver not being able to read or write English, count towards insufficient signage? Has anyone else had this situation come up before and appealed successfully?

Of course not - there are hundreds of languages in the world, and it's not practical for a sign to include all of them 'just in case'.


You need to provide more details:
- Is the car foreign-registered?
- Is it a hire car?


Both of these will alter the correct course of action. If neither apply, the registered keeper should wait for the postal NtK (assuming it hasn't arrived yet), and then the RK must appeal to Parking Eye and then to POPLA. You can, of course, help with appeal-writing, but the name at the bottom of the appeal must be the RK.
As matttye says, you should read the sticky and learn what wins at POPLA. The circumstances of the parking event are almost always irrelevant.

Hot_Bring

spikyone wrote: »

Of course not - there are hundreds of languages in the world, and it's not practical for a sign to include all of them 'just in case'.

While I agree with you about the practicalities that is a problem for the PPCs to deal with. It is they that claim you are entering a contract. You can't possibly enter a contract you don't understand. If I was supplying services to you and wrote the contract in Chinese you wouldn't understand it and I'd be forced to translate it for you if I wanted the contract to be entered into. Just because PPCs think a one size fits all contract is sufficient to make it binding doesn't make it so.

spikyone

Hot_Bring wrote: »

If I was supplying services to you and wrote the contract in Chinese you wouldn't understand it and I'd be forced to translate it for you

Of course, but this is not analogous to the current case. Without wishing to legitimise PPC-world, if the OP's friend doesn't understand English then why did she park in an area with signage that - in all likelihood - imparted some kind of parking restriction? Particularly since it's likely that the only numbers on that sign were £60/£100. Let's say I was in Greece (chosen because of the non-Latin alphabet) and saw a car park sign with €60/€100 as the only recognisable text, I wouldn't stick around to find out whether the sign was aimed at me.

Were this on-street parking with restricted hours, the lack of multi-lingual signs would be no defence against an ensuing council PCN (again, not wishing to legitimise PPC charges). Consider also that there are many UK signs and road markings that differ from their foreign counterparts - no stopping signs, SYL and DYL, yellow markings on the kerb may have no meaning to those from overseas. It would be no defence if, say, an American left their rental car on DYLs because they didn't understand the restriction.

I support the idea that "contracts" for free parking (or prohibiting parking, or imparting huge contractual charges for wayward parking) are patently ridiculous. But if it ever got that far, I wouldn't want to argue in front of HHJ Moloney that the signs should be multi-lingual...

Tilt

Hot_Bring wrote: »

While I agree with you about the practicalities that is a problem for the PPCs to deal with. It is they that claim you are entering a contract. You can't possibly enter a contract you don't understand. If I was supplying services to you and wrote the contract in Chinese you wouldn't understand it and I'd be forced to translate it for you if I wanted the contract to be entered into. Just because PPCs think a one size fits all contract is sufficient to make it binding doesn't make it so.

Understand where your'e coming from, but you wouldn't write a 'contract' in another language other than English in England would you?

Without trying to sound racist or anything like that, I can only assume that the driver is not native to this country and as such, the car dosn't belong to them. Otherwise how could someone be legally responsible for a vehicle or pass a driving test in England if they cannot read or understand English?

Hot_Bring

Tilt wrote: »

Understand where your'e coming from, but you wouldn't write a 'contract' in another language other than English in England would you?

No, fair point. Now I wonder if there are any PPC signs in Wales in Welsh ?

Umkomaas

Hot_Bring wrote: »

No, fair point. Now I wonder if there are any PPC signs in Wales in Welsh ?

Bi-lingual ones in some parts I've visited.

Tilt wrote: »

Understand where your'e coming from, but you wouldn't write a 'contract' in another language other than English in England would you?

You're clearly not familiar with some of owd Trev's then. :rotfl:

BenefitMaster

Hot_Bring wrote: »

No, fair point. Now I wonder if there are any PPC signs in Wales in Welsh ?

I'm aware of a defendant who wrote to ParkingEye in Welsh and asked for a Welsh court... PE dropped it like a hot potato.

Croeso i Gymraeg :j

gertysingh

Of course there is Tesco's offer of free erections:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/29799542