Penalty Charge Notice - London Borough of Islington

lilliethe

Hi there! Newbie here, apologies if I haven't posted this in the correct thread.

I am an Office Assistant in a company and apart from working in Accounts, I also manage the company fleet. 

I received a Penalty Charge Notice from London Borough of Islington for a vehicle that is being leased and driven by a staff member.

They're quoting '38JL Failing to comply with a sign indicating that vehicular traffic must pass to the specified side of the sign' in Marlborough Road, Islington. 

''The alleged contravention was captured and supported by digital video images obtained by either a manned or unmanned road side camera at the time stated.'' 

Looking at the pictures online and on the notice, the pictures taken are directly looking at the front of the vehicle passing through a road that supposedly has a sign, but due to the angle of the pictures, I'm unable to see what those. I've got a pretty good idea of what it is, but the actual picture doesn't show those alleged signs. 

The other thing is as well - date of the contravention is 25th of June and I received this on the 17th of September - 3 months later! 

Could any of you advise whether:

- Is it legal to be pursuing this charge so late after it's happened? Can I appeal if it's not legal?
- If it is legal, can I appeal based on the grounds that the pictures provided do not show clearly what the penalty charge is for?

I've appealed parking tickets and penalty charge notices in the past with City of London, but nothing like this, so any help will be massively appreciated!  

P.S. More than happy to post pictures, if anyone wants to see exactly what I mean.

Keep_pedalling

Isn’t it up to the driver to appeal?

AdrianC

As far as the time goes, are you the registered keeper, with the V5C in your possession and your address on it? Or is it the lease company...?
Because the 14 day stipulation is to the name and address on the V5C.
After that, they have time to respond, it may go backward and forward, etc.

The notice tells you what it's for. A quick look at Streetview confirms it. No, the photos on the ticket do not have to show all the signage.

At the start of Marlborough Road, there's a width restriction warning.
https://goo.gl/maps/VXMkHyVn4LuyqCpf7

Go a short way up, and there's an island in the middle of the road, with a width restriction to the left, and a wider portion to the right. It's clearly labelled keep left, and the wider portion is clearly labelled as "FIRE ACCESS KEEP CLEAR".
https://goo.gl/maps/2fSdLpDPp7zpemD36

It doesn't take a lot of guessing as to what's happened, does it?

Is this vehicle a van, perhaps? The driver is an idiot, and is bang to rights.

Follow the procedure to nominate them as the driver. Their bad driving, their ticket, their problem.

Car_54

AdrianC said:

As far as the time goes, are you the registered keeper, with the V5C in your possession and your address on it? Or is it the lease company...?
Because the 14 day stipulation is to the name and address on the V5C.
After that, they have time to respond, it may go backward and forward, etc.

The notice tells you what it's for. A quick look at Streetview confirms it. No, the photos on the ticket do not have to show all the signage.

At the start of Marlborough Road, there's a width restriction warning.
https://goo.gl/maps/VXMkHyVn4LuyqCpf7

Go a short way up, and there's an island in the middle of the road, with a width restriction to the left, and a wider portion to the right. It's clearly labelled keep left, and the wider portion is clearly labelled as "FIRE ACCESS KEEP CLEAR".
https://goo.gl/maps/2fSdLpDPp7zpemD36

It doesn't take a lot of guessing as to what's happened, does it?

Is this vehicle a van, perhaps? The driver is an idiot, and is bang to rights.

Follow the procedure to nominate them as the driver. Their bad driving, their ticket, their problem.

Agree with alll of the above, except the time limit for PCNs is 28 days, not 14.

Aretnap

Car_54 said:

AdrianC said:

As far as the time goes, are you the registered keeper, with the V5C in your possession and your address on it? Or is it the lease company...?
Because the 14 day stipulation is to the name and address on the V5C.
After that, they have time to respond, it may go backward and forward, etc.

The notice tells you what it's for. A quick look at Streetview confirms it. No, the photos on the ticket do not have to show all the signage.

At the start of Marlborough Road, there's a width restriction warning.
https://goo.gl/maps/VXMkHyVn4LuyqCpf7

Go a short way up, and there's an island in the middle of the road, with a width restriction to the left, and a wider portion to the right. It's clearly labelled keep left, and the wider portion is clearly labelled as "FIRE ACCESS KEEP CLEAR".
https://goo.gl/maps/2fSdLpDPp7zpemD36

It doesn't take a lot of guessing as to what's happened, does it?

Is this vehicle a van, perhaps? The driver is an idiot, and is bang to rights.

Follow the procedure to nominate them as the driver. Their bad driving, their ticket, their problem.

Agree with alll of the above, except the time limit for PCNs is 28 days, not 14.

Also you can't "nominate them as the driver". Liability for PCNs lies with the vehicle owner, not the driver. The exception is hire car companies where the rental agreement makes the hirer liable for the charge. This probably won't apply to a company fleet vehicle. 

TooManyPoints

It is not my area of expertise, but if a PCN has been issued by a Local Authority, it will be for a "decriminalised" offence. I believe that "owner liability" is the principle for those. If so the driver does not have to be identified. But I stand to be corrected.

Car_54

Best place for advice is pepipoo.com, in the ‘Council’ forum.

AdrianC

I am happy to sit corrected.

You can tell I don't make a habit of driving to the right of keep left signs in the face of cctv cameras, can't you?

So the OP needs to pay it, then follow whatever her company's procedure is for recouping the fine from the idiot's pay.

TooManyPoints

So the OP needs to pay it, then follow whatever her company's procedure is for recouping the fine from the idiot's pay.

I think that's about it.

lilliethe

Hi everyone. Thank you for your replies.

To explain a bit further, the vehicle is leased from a company, it's an Audi Q7, so not too sure if the driver thought that keeping to the left wouldn't have given him much space to get through as it's nearly 2m wide vehicle.

I imagine it's not much of an excuse either, but the driver doesn't normally go into London either, so I'm guessing it was a fairly unknown commute.

Not in possession of the V5C, just leasing agreement for the vehicle.

Normally, any parking charges company pays for and then recoups the cost from the driver's pay. 

In the past, when we've had penalty charge notices for lease vehicles, they go through to the leasing company, who then pass it on to us and charge us an admin fee for paying it and whatever the charge is as well. 

Not sure if it works different with different leasing companies, but for other vehicles in the past couple of years, the PCN's have been sent directly through to us and I would then have to deal with them (nominate driver, address, etc.). In this instance, I can't nominate a driver, looks like it's either pay or make representations.

I've just never had a PCN before that's been dated 3 months from the date it happened, usually we receive them (most of the time its parking charges) a few days from when it happened (the likes of ParkingEye, etc.). This would probably be what I'd like to find out - whether it's appealable on the grounds of it being more than the above mentioned 28 days after it happened? 

AdrianC

lilliethe said:

To explain a bit further, the vehicle is leased from a company, it's an Audi Q7, so not too sure if the driver thought that keeping to the left wouldn't have given him much space to get through as it's nearly 2m wide vehicle.

The time for them to think about that was before turning into the road, past the width-restriction signs.

It's clearly signed both ways from the main Hornsey Road A103 before turning in...
https://goo.gl/maps/dsJLdzphVjNxd2XS9
https://goo.gl/maps/UZuz2CufARAWnXy27

A current-shape Q7 is 1970mm wide. The width restriction is signed as 2.13m wide. That's a gap of 160mm. They'd have fitted with space to spare, 80mm on either side - assuming the sign isn't deliberately pessimistic, which they usually are.

If the driver can't cope with the realities of driving such a large vehicle, perhaps they should drive a smaller one? At least if it had been a van, they'd have an excuse to drive a wider vehicle.

I imagine it's not much of an excuse either, but the driver doesn't normally go into London either, so I'm guessing it was a fairly unknown commute.

No, it isn't any kind of an excuse. It's more of a reason for them to be paying attention to signage.

This would probably be what I'd like to find out - whether it's appealable on the grounds of it being more than the above mentioned 28 days after it happened?

If you can prove that it was sent to the registered keeper at the address on the V5C outside the 28 days, then possibly. But otherwise... no.

How much time and effort do YOU want to put into sparing this idiot from the utterly predictable consequences of their own actions in ignoring blatantly obvious roadsigns, anyway? It's not coming from your pocket, and it's not coming from your employer's pocket unless they have inadequate HR policies around company vehicles.