Name the driver - reset the clock?

Upsidedowner

Hi - quick question please if anyone has time to answer,

Its been seven months since I was served with a NTK letter for a PCN. Obviously I know Ive missed the opportunity to appeal/pay the 'reduced' £60 charge.

If at this stage I name the driver - is the clock reset for the driver. IE: Do they then get the oportunity to appeal and pay the reduced fine or has that ship well and truely sailed as I had the opportunity to name them months ago.

waamo

Before you go down that route name the ppc. Many are very court shy and it might be worth just sitting it out.

claxtome

If at this stage I name the driver - is the clock reset for the driver. IE: Do they then get the oportunity to appeal and pay the reduced fine or has that ship well and truely sailed as I had the opportunity to name them months ago.

Good question which I don't know the answer.
Are you sure you want to name the driver?

Quite a lot of cases are won by not naming the drive and proving that they haven't followed the strict POFA rules to pursue the Keeper.

Have you received further correspondence from the Parking firm which is why you are asking the question?
Who is the parking firm as might help to answer your question?

beamerguy

Upsidedowner wrote: »

Hi - quick question please if anyone has time to answer,

Its been seven months since I was served with a NTK letter for a PCN. Obviously I know Ive missed the opportunity to appeal/pay the 'reduced' £60 charge.

If at this stage I name the driver - is the clock reset for the driver. IE: Do they then get the oportunity to appeal and pay the reduced fine or has that ship well and truely sailed as I had the opportunity to name them months ago.

The only time to name the driver is if you hate them
and want them to experience the harassment that follows.

Upsidedowner

Hi - thanks for the replies.

I've been reading through the newbie threads here and elsewhere and weighing up my options. It pains me to pay them anything - as I know if I put the effort/research in it may well be worth it but the anxiety that goes along with that isn't for everyone (wuss I know!).

If the option to name the driver and pay £60 is possible it might just save me heaps of time and stress (I know it goes against everything you are trying to do here AND you peeps give your time for free)

Its Excel - they have sent a Letter before Court or pay £190. Hence my question as £60 to make this all go away is something I would consider before fighting them all the way.

Upsidedowner

Ha! Thanks Beamerguy!
I appreciate that - In this instance I'm wanting to know if naming the driver affords them the opportunity to appeal and/or pay the reduced fee - an opportunity the Keeper has missed out on months because they thought ignoring everything was still the way to go (appreciate that advice hasn't been given for years)

The_Deep

Whatefer you do, complain to your MP.

This is an entirely unregulated industry which is scamming the public with inflated claims for minor breaches of contracts for alleged parking offences, aided and abetted by a handful of low-rent solicitors.

Parking Eye, CPM, Smart, and another company have already been named and shamed, as has Gladstones Solicitors, and BW Legal, (these two law firms take hundreds of these cases to court each year). They lose most of them, and have been reported to the regulatory authority by an M.P. for unprofessional conduct

Hospital car parks and residential complex tickets have been especially mentioned.

The problem has become so rampant that MPs have agreed to enact a Bill to regulate these scammers. Watch the video of the Second Reading in the HofC recently.

http://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/2f0384f2-eba5-4fff-ab07-cf24b6a22918?in=12:49:41

and complain in the most robust terms to your MP. With a fair wind most of these companies may well be put out of business by Christmas.

Upsidedowner

Thanks for the info - I will. I know a councillor who is friends with my local MP - so will ask him to pass the letter to her so I know she has it. Its a fairly new car park in the town and quite a few people I've come into contact with have fallen foul of the stupid rules so Ill make sure they all write letters too.

Does anybody know the answer to the question in the meantime? It might not even be an option at all. I imagine if it was a windscreen ticket the driver has already had that opportunity - but in this case it was a postal demand served straight to the keeper of the vehicle. So the driver in theory has never had the opportunity to defend/appeal/pay the notice.

waamo

Excel are members of the IPC which means essentially there is no appeal service.

Coupon-mad

If it was a windscreen PCN, the driver had their chance to appeal in the first month, so naming them will not reset the clock. Not saying naming them is not an option BTW, it is, but not to save money.

If it was an ANPR camera PCN by post (or a 'myparkingcharge/com' ghost PCN 'this is not a PCN') then naming them and giving their address is an option the keeper can use (e.g. as a last resort if they are scared and the driver is a more robust person) but we would not tell you that Excel are likely to reset the clock, nor re-offer £60 to that party.

So my answer is no, with Excel IMHO, you can't reset the clock and get a £60 offer.

And naming the driver makes the position worse in defence, because you will have binned 'no keeper liability'. See Excel v Lamoureux:

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/transcript-round-up-data-protection.html

Transcripts for his two cases are linked here (he posts as Lamilad on this forum):

http://www.parking-prankster.com/more-case-law.html

and read the transcript from the Judge in VCS v Quayle.

Now, why oh why would a keeper throw all that protection in the bin and inflict a driver with the harassment, with a less strong case?

Upsidedowner

Thank you Coupon-mad.

If I could have relied on the £60 being an option - while it would have pained me to pay them a penny, weighing up the time it takes to defend and the months possibly years of stress it was an option I was willing to consider to make this disappear.

Looks like Im in this for the longhaul.

I've read through the threads and can see at this stage just to keep replying to the non-compliant LBC's very firmly, pretty much telling them to bog off as there is no case to answer and the debt is denied. I've found loads of templates so will splice them together with bits that are applicable to my case.

If I am served with court papers I'll put together an equally robust defence from the information I've gathered here. If its ok to post it here for anyone that has the time to give it the once over that would be great. Should I post back on this thread or start a new one asking for help with court defence if/when that happens?

Oh quick question, their NTK letter looks pretty compliant to me, do I still say the stuff about it not complying with the POFA, and as such they cannot rely on 'keeper liability' at all. (in other words do I just throw everything at them and invite them to prove me wrong from every possible angle that applies to my case)

Cheers peeps. Appreciate the advice. Will arm myself with as much info as possible and pop on my big girl pants!