Excel signage in Prestwich impossible to read, IAS thinks not....!

traceynob

Long story but bear with me.....The driver of a car parked in a car park in Prestwich village after midnight. The car park was dark and poorly lit, all the surrounding shops and restaurants were closed, the car park was virtually empty, and they genuinely did not notice any signs telling them to pay. There are five other local car parks which are free to park in, day and night, and the driver (perhaps naively) thought this one was too.
On returning to car next morning, there was a £100 PCN on windscreen. Apparently the driver should have paid £1.00! On closer inspection, the signs were spotted, but were almost impossible to read. Usual Excel stuff, tiny writing, font very close, capital letters, blue and yellow etc. Two signs were on posts at least 6 feet high, the others are low down on walls and easily hidden by obstacles such as bins or other cars. There were 7 signs in all, only one sign showed the parking tariff, this sign was hidden in a corner that was not visible from over half of the car park spaces. Hidden next to it was the one and only ticket machine, painted dark blue. Wrote to Excel and complained about the signage, but surprisingly they were unsympathetic. So had to make decision about whether to appeal to IAS, after all the warnings about being a kangaroo court. However the signage was so poor we thought we had a watertight case.

Appeal was based on the following factors;
1 Inadequate signage due to lack of illumination at night and writing pretty much illegible even in day time
2 Most signs do not inform motorist of the tariff, so without knowing what is expected of them, in terms of how much to pay, they cannot fully agree to the contract
3 On GPEOL, as the loss to parking company/landowner was only £1.00 so how can £100.00 be justified
4 Excel did not provide evidence that they had authority of landowner

IAS ignored points 2 and 4 totally and dismissed appeal as they said that even though we provided evidence that showed the signs were difficult to read at night, Excel provided evidence that the signs are visible and prominent....! We never said the signs weren't visible or prominent, we said they were not possible to read. IAS also said the onus was on the appellant to prove our claims were more likely than not!! We thought we had, photo's clearly show poor lighting, signs cannot be read and no tariff displayed.
They also said GPEOL didn't apply as was a contractual charge., and quoted Beavis Vs PE, which is totally irrelevant in this case. However, Excel have now told us the charge was for breach of contract.

I am enraged by the lack of fairness and abuse of the law, but even more enraged that there is no-one to turn to, as everyone with any authority has a vested interest, including DVLA. I have complained to DVLA and IPC and my local MP but none of them have bothered to respond yet. This is why these boards and people like Parking Cowboys and Parking Prankster are so useful, they let people know there is someone out there fighting their corner.

Now the IAS appeal has been dismissed, we're sitting ducks waiting for the harassment letters. I'll update post with documents/photos soon.

Grimble

Do you think they would want a real judge looking at this?

traceynob

The photos are on the 'imgur.com' website if you search under 'Excel signage in Prestwich car park'
(sorry can't paste links yet as new user)

Please tell me whether anyone can read any of them, either the day or night versions....?

zoonyx

There was another very similar report yesterday.

It's IAS, its a regular occurance, but luckily it means jack if they ever take someone to court (And they know it!)

Umkomaas

zoonyx wrote: »

There was another very similar report yesterday.

It's IAS, its a regular occurance, but luckily it means jack if they ever take someone to court (And they know it!)

I think this is the same one; it was posted on the IAS Decisions thread (Redx and I responded to it at the time), but looks like the OP has deleted there and posted as a new thread here.

The Prankster also picked up on it and blogged about it.

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/ipc-kangaroo-court-defies-government.html

The_Deep

That is the point. As you say, they are abusing the law, and because of this the PPC can do nothing more than make empty threats.

traceynob

I'm hoping that the fact that the IAS response is so blatantly biased and not based on common law, that they won't want it to go before a judge. In an independent appeal or court of law, surely the onus is on the claimant i.e. the Operator, to prove their case as they are the ones claiming they are owed money. Otherwise anyone could just claim someone owes them money, and the onus would be on the other person to prove that they don't. What kind of chaos would that be.....? The chaos that is the private parking industry in the UK at the moment.

traceynob

BTW, here is a sentence from the latest letter from Excel......

'I feel that this situation would have been easy to mitigate by the driver illuminating the area using the car headlights......'

According to the IPC Code of Practice, ‘If parking enforcement takes place outside of daylight hours the car park operator should ensure that signs are illuminated….. You will need to ensure all signs are readable during the hours of enforcement as they form the legal basis of any charge’.

The onus is therefore on the car park operator to ensure all their signs are clearly visible and readable at night. The driver should therefore be able to see the signs clearly without having to drive around the car park looking for signs that they don’t even know are there using their car headlights! In fact, the two signs nearest to where the car was parked are on posts eight feet from the ground, and are therefore too high to be illuminated by car headlights. Surely these comments prove that the signs are not readable at night if they require motorists to drive round shining their car headlights in order to find the signs.

Herzlos

Exactly. However, the IAS promise to reject 80% of appeals (so have to twist the facts pretty hard), and they all hope you'll feel suitably concerned you'll just pay up.

Odds are, beyond some BIG REG LETTERED threat-o-grams, you'll hear nothing more.

If you want, you can fire off a complaint to the SRA about their barristers misrepresentation of the law, and to the DVLA for their clearly biased appeals service.

trisontana

So not only have you to prove a negative ("I did not break your rules") now you have to supply your own lighting-rig to illuminate their signs. Welcome to planet IPC.

Half_way

I would be tempted to do a put up or shut up on them and the landowner.
Tell the landowner that thier agents are harassing you, and if they dont stop the letters with immediate effect you may charge them, the landowner as principal £18 per hour ( or part thereof ) in dealing with it.

you could also get in touch with the Parsistic parking company and tell them that you categorically reject the findings of the IAS and you demand an ADR service that meets the Alternate Dispute for Consumer Disputes Regulations 2015, and as such they must now cancel the charge and issue you with a full apology