How To Avoid Getting A "Parking Fine"

nigelbb

PPCs are perverting contract law in pursuit of profit and actually do a pretty poor of parking management. I don't rely on contract law to keep unwanted visitors out of my house I just use a lock. If car parks were policed with barriers there would be no problem (except the PPCs wouldn't be raking in obscene profits).

Dr._Shoe

Herzlos wrote: »

When do they stop being a customer? Once the transaction is done?

Say I go into a giant tesco and spend an hour shopping, then load up my car and pop across the road into another shop for something for 2 minutes.
Is that reasonable or unreasonable? I could spend that 2 minutes checking my hair & makeup before I start the car.

No that isn't but what is unreasonable is someone who parks there car there at 10am, gets on the free bus that's laid on by the supermarket. Gets off in town does a load of shopping, has lunch and then jumps on the same free bus back to the supermarket and then drives home.

I sometimes place myself in the position of the plaintiff and then in the position of the judge (hypothetically speaking of course) and come to the realisation that my seemingly innocent action is going to cause inconvenience to someone else.

Like when someone comes home from the park to find the street full of cars and nowhere to park. They might complain, punch the steering wheel in frustration but then remember that they parked outside of someone else's house just a few minutes earlier...

Cornucopia

I get where the OP is coming from.

The question is how best to undermine the PPCs so that regime changes to be more sympathetic to genuine errors and misunderstandings.

(Of course that presumes that the regime is changeable, which is a different question).

I can imagine at least two broad strategies.

1. (The OP's idea). Park as well as possible at all times to minimise the excess charges take by the PPCs. The problem with this is that the PPCs are quite happy with the bulk of their take, which is undisputed by drivers due to apathy or lack of awareness.

2. Mass non-compliant park-in, with the intention of breaking the system by sheer weight of numbers. This is effectively the opposite of the OP's idea, but I think it has substantially more merit, and more chance of effecting change. The only downside of it is that the park-in drivers risk losing sympathy from the authorities and/or the general public.

It would be good to know the figures so that the effect of these ideas could be properly estimated.

Dr._Shoe

Hot_Bring wrote: »

I parked within the rules TWICE and got 'tickets' TWICE from G24 so your simple solution is a false one. Because of those two instances I've made it my mission to get as many people off these fake invoices as possible AND I've purposely picked up a number of other fake invoices for fun.

I've been physically threaterned by PPC employees, threaterned over the phone and via email. So forgive me if your utopia blinds you from the real facts that .... ALL PPCS ARE CORRUPT LYING BULLYING SCUMBAGS WHO GET EVERYTHING THEY DESERVE !!!!!

Yes, they are. If you get a "ticket" when you were parked legitimately then that is bad and I hope you won your appeals.

I'm not defending PPCs here, in fact quite the contrary, I'd love to see them run out of business but they're like rats, no matter how many you kill more keep coming back.

I would love to live in a world where we don't need parking control because everyone parks where they're supposed to but it's a sad fact of life that a small handful do not and that makes life difficult for the rest of us.

Cornucopia

Dr._Shoe wrote: »

No that isn't but what is unreasonable is someone who parks there car there at 10am, gets on the free bus that's laid on by the supermarket. Gets off in town does a load of shopping, has lunch and then jumps on the same free bus back to the supermarket and then drives home.

There's an easy fix for that, which is to require a voucher for the bus TO town, which is available from the supermarket tills with a certain value of shopping.

Or give passengers on the bus from town the voucher for their trip back to town - so that the service can only be used in that order.

ManxRed

The point a lot of us are trying to get across, is that if PPCs acted reasonably (e.g. not ticketing cars where no rules have been broken, imposed reasonable charges in line with Genuine pre-Estimates of Loss, upheld genuine appeals) then half these problems wouldn't exist in the first place.

And I'd get my life back!

But we all know that isn't the case. And while that remains so, then people are going to take the p*ss when parking.

You're right to have an issue with errant parkers and abusers, but it's corrupt PPCs abusing civil law in order to maximise profits that are the bad guys here.

Dr._Shoe

Cornucopia wrote: »

I get where the OP is coming from.

The question is how best to undermine the PPCs so that regime changes to be more sympathetic to genuine errors and misunderstandings.

(Of course that presumes that the regime is changeable, which is a different question).

I can imagine at least two broad strategies.

1. (The OP's idea). Park as well as possible at all times to minimise the excess charges take by the PPCs. The problem with this is that the PPCs are quite happy with the bulk of their take, which is undisputed by drivers due to apathy or lack of awareness.

2. Mass non-compliant park-in, with the intention of breaking the system by sheer weight of numbers. This is effectively the opposite of the OP's idea, but I think it has substantially more merit, and more chance of effecting change. The only downside of it is that the park-in drivers risk losing sympathy from the authorities and/or the general public.

It would be good to know the figures so that the effect of these ideas could be properly estimated.

Exactly!

I like second idea. it does have merit but that presupposes that any legitimate parkers would be inconvenienced.

I did have an idea of doing that to a clamping firm after they clamped my car once. Buying about a dozen scrapped cars, plonking them in a carpark and then coming along with a hiab to take them away with the clamp still afixed and then send them a letter asking for the keys and £75 per clamp plus postage. Delays in responding would lead to a further charge of £10 per day storage and an admin fee of £20 per clamp!

Cornucopia

It could work locally, but would be more effective nationally, where the stresses would be imposed upon the PPCs themselves, the POPLA appeal process, and potentially the Courts. It would need to be thousands of additional cases.

Even a large number of cases spread across the country would be unlikely to be a serious inconvenience to legitimate car park users.


These non-statutory regimes that are imposed upon the public are very tricky to deal with definitively, because different groups of the public will perceive them and deal with them in different ways.

Sometimes you need to look at what one group can do for the benefit of the entire population.

ManxRed

Cornucopia wrote: »

It could work locally, but would be more effective nationally, where the stresses would be imposed upon the PPCs themselves, the POPLA appeal process, and potentially the Courts. It would need to be thousands of additional cases.

Even a large number of cases spread across the country would be unlikely to be a serious inconvenience to legitimate car park users.

Target just one PPC? A BPA member so we know they'd have to offer POPLA and stump up the £27 a pop?

Just trying to think of a major BPA PPC that has good coverage all over the place. Erm.... um....... errr.......

Cornucopia

ManxRed wrote: »

Target just one PPC? A BPA member so we know they'd have to offer POPLA and stump up the £27 a pop?

Just trying to think of a major BPA PPC that has good coverage all over the place. Erm.... um....... errr.......

Yes, that could work, although care would be needed to avoid the allegation that the PPC was being blackmailed by the action.