Accidentally parked in disabled bay 🙈

kl2285

Went to the Metrocentre last week, the car park was empty so I parked up, paused for a second and then decided to move forwards into the space in front to avoid having to reverse out later.

I did look briefly to make sure it was a normal space and the light was reflecting off the ground quite a lot so I honestly didn't see any disabled markings! I couldn't see any signs either, not that I was consciously looking for them, so left my car and returned a few hours later to a ticket from UKPC. I was genuinely mortified and thought for a second someone had moved my car as a joke 😂

I wouldn't park in a disabled bay in a full car park let alone an empty one. So as stupid as it was and I can only blame myself, I thought I'd ask whether I'm right to just pay it or whether I should try and contest it.

I returned the following day to take pictures and make sure I wasn't going mad because I swear the signage wasn't visible. I've looked through the stickies and other threads but can't make sense of it all.

(I've only just registered on this site so I'm not sure how to post the pictures)

Umkomaas

Contest it by appealing as per the advice and template in the NEWBIES FAQ sticky, post #1. UKPC are a BPA operator.

You cannot post photos as a newbie. Use photobucket, tinyprint, Dropbox (or the like), copy the URL and paste it into the message box here, but change http to read hxxp, then a regular will convert it to a live link.

beamerguy

"I did look briefly to make sure it was a normal space and the light was reflecting off the ground quite a lot so I honestly didn't see any disabled markings!"

In many car parks, the markings on the ground is often faded

Coupon-mad

I've looked through the stickies and other threads but can't make sense of it all.

Yes you can.

There's a template appeal for BPA firms, in blue writing. It says to copy it into the online appeal page choosing 'registered keeper' not driver, and not until day 26. Hardly difficult but please don't expect everyone to re-write what's here already.