Parking stories in the News/media

Car1980

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy429jwp2edo

Well done Parking Eye.

Well done Popla.

Coupon-mad

I wondered whether their aggressive actions ended up killing that lady when I read about her being in hospital in March after the fall coming put of court.

That poor lady, dragged to court.

The company said it had provided "multiple opportunities" for her to engage and submit supporting information. It said the decision was also "independently reviewed and upheld by POPLA".

The company added: "We do not wish for any motorist to end up in court. However, where there is a continued lack of correct engagement with the process, cases will ultimately be escalated"

How dare they accuse her of 'continued lack of engagement' with them? Being the registered keeper is rebuttable. They knew from her that it wasn't her car, from her early appeal.

HOW DARE THEY?

She clearly:

• appealed
• tried useless POPLA
• probably responded to the LBC because she was scared
• defended the claim
• attended court in person and won.

What more did they want from her?

Oh wait…indirectly, they took her life.

Half_way

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82027079#Comment_82027079

The sacrifices of these parking companies are well known, ultimately the responsibility for this should test with the so far un named pub in Saffron weldon

daveyjp

Local BBC news has had a story this morning about the chaotic situation around the drop off area at Leeds station. I know works to the station haven't yet been completed, but even when they are I'm not convinced there will be any significant improvements.

The station had 27m users last year, it is served by one drop off area accessed via what is in effect a back street road and a small turning area. One taxi driver said it can take an hour from joining the queue to the station to getting to the rank.

I'm also sure the £100 invoice scam also results in drivers now avoiding the station area completely and stopping on the street to drop off and pick up.

1505grandad

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/call-for-urgent-change-as-drivers-deliberately-confused-into-paying-170/ar-AA25g2Y4?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=6a292b95c0cc4909a35bd249b17e55d2&ei=90

"Some 31% of this group felt the former should be renamed private parking charges. The RAC published the results of the survey as it revealed it expects Government figures published in the coming weeks to show the annual number of parking charge notices handed out to drivers reached a record high of 17 million for the year to the end of March."

Good to know:-

"“The BPA continues to work closely with Government on a new code of practice to strengthen protections for decent motorists.”"

Coupon-mad

Yes I just saw this on the RAC website:

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/motoring-news/RAC-predicts-private-parking-tickets-to-rise-to-record-17m/

The exact annual figure will be confirmed by FOI next month.

It will be a 3 million increase; a new record and clearly not caused by the consumer blame culture embedded excuses the parking sector always trot out (parking firms "taking over more sites" and/or "it's all the driving public's fault").

It's clear the industry is:

- making hay while the sun shines

- out of control

- long overdue a proper Regulator who can stop them (the CMA would be perfect, but appointing a Regulator was all too hastily discounted by this Government in their Options Assessment).

Coupon-mad

Mum faces court battle over parking fine at Playworld after pulling up when poorly daughter felt sick

https://huddersfieldhub.co.uk/mum-faces-court-battle-over-parking-fine-at-playworld-in-marsh-after-pulling-up-when-poorly-daughter-felt-sick/

"Karen Farley has decided to let the process go through to court and will explain what happened there. She is also getting proof from the school that Isabella was ill that day and she had been called to pick her up.

Over the months the 'fine' kept escalating up to £259 although UKCPS offered a reduction of £220 which Karen refused and they then offered to reduce it to £150 which again she declined as a matter of principle.

As she’s a single mum with a busy life she offered to pay the original parking fee to close the case and end the stress but UKCPS refused this and court now seems to be the only way forward for both sides after mediation failed too. Karen has not heard anything about a court date yet.

Karen added: “This has been hanging over me for more than a year now and I’m still fuming about it … it’s so unfair. The photo UKCPS sent me of the car clearly shows me standing next to it checking that Isabella is OK. At no point was I parking which is why I wasn’t in a bay. I just stopped to check she was all right and it’s led to all this hassle. Life’s tough enough without getting silly bills like this when I’ve done nothing wrong.’’

The article continues:

"UKCPS does not have an email address.

It has a phone number which operates from 11am to 1pm on weekdays but when Huddersfield Hub phoned it and pressed option 2 to speak to an advisor the phone cut off. We tried this four times and the UKCPS phone hung up every time."

Coupon-mad

Blue badge confusion continues at Maidenhead car park as couple hit with fine

https://www.maidenhead-advertiser.co.uk/news/traffic-and-travel/706773/blue-badge-confusion-continues-at-maidenhead-car-park-as-couple-hit-with-fine.html

Yet again this is about a parking firm passing an unexpected - and unfair - extra burden (not imposed on able bodied car park users) that requires disabled motorists to take additional steps to 'register' blue badges as well as display them.

They do this because they 'WANT' to use cheap remote camera surveillance and Automated Decision-Making to churn out postal PCNs far later, instead of properly inspecting Blue Badges on foot on the day, like Councils do.

In my view, that's a breach of the new data use legislation because (where the Blue Badge belongs to the driver/keeper) the data of a disabled person is 'Special Category data' which the law says has a double protection against obtaining & processing it, if it can be avoided.

Putting PCNs on windscreens as Councils do, alerts the person on the day (making it a 'timely consumer notice' which complies with the CRA 2015) and would avoid processing Special Category data at first instance.

But the private parking industry don't want to pay for someone on foot because they want to continue to swim in money. That's not a valid justification for passing an unfair burden to disabled people to jump through extra hoops.

Councils can't even use ANPR for PCN enforcement in car parks (the Deregulation Act 2015 banned it)!

In this case, it's Green Parking.

The latest victim at this site used to work for a council parking department so of course he believed they only had to display the Blue Badge like they always had at this site:

"Ron Dorward, 72, was hit with the charge after using Broadway Car Park for just over an hour to take his wife, who is receiving treatment for leukaemia, into town one morning. Car park users have previously complained about fines at the site, which is operated by Green Parking and requires blue badge holders to pre-register before making use of free parking."

Ron didn't know this. Why would he?

"Access to blue badge parking in the town centre is vital for the couple, Mr Dorward said, as his wife is being treated for cancer and needs a mobility vehicle to get around.

“Any slight sort of hiccups or anything like that makes us feel really bad,” Mr Dorward said before the fine was cancelled. “She's saying, ‘if we don't pay they’ll take us to court – I can't go to court like this’.”

Mr Dorward, who said he has previously worked for the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead’s parking department, said the pre-registration rule they had fallen foul of could have been much better communicated."

Green Parking cancelled it when the newspaper started sniffing around…

Course they did. Sweep it under the carpet.

Coupon-mad

Have we had this one?

Euro Car Parks dodgy keypads again:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp9pjy9d2g8o

Glenn Orrah he received a letter telling him his appeal was unsuccessful because he had entered only the last three digits of his registration number into the pay and display machine.

Which the first PCN hadn't said.

However, Euro Car Parks offered to close the matter in return for a £20 administration fee, in line with the BPA code for "major keying errors".

Orrah said "common sense" should show the company he paid to park, with the registration letters and photographs from the letter matching his car.

"It doesn't matter if it's £20, £100 or £170," he said. "I paid £1.50 for a ticket. I'm not prepared to pay £20 and admit liability."

He added: "I have been in business for 47 years and I have never owed a penny to anyone. I am prepared to take this to court because I am not wrong."

Sadly, he's been duped into appealing to POPLA, which he will lose. Then he'll be sued by DCB Legal so let's hope he finds his way here & NEVER pays this unfair PCN.

Even more sadly, he doesn't seem to gave realised that this likely wasn't his error…did he not Google it and find all the articles and Lynda Eagan's video showing how ECP keypads 'work' to cause PCNs?

Coupon-mad

Another one - but COUNCIL this time:

Parking warden issued fines to "vulnerable" patients at Crawley Hospital - even though ticket machines were broken

https://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news/people/parking-warden-issued-fines-to-vulnerable-patients-at-crawley-hospital-even-though-ticket-machines-were-broken-8658355

Sophie Ellis, 38, was attending Crawley hospital for an appointment and discovered every machine was not accepting either cash or card payments.

"There were people at every single machine and everyone was trying to pay [without luck] and with the average age of people trying to pay I was the youngest there by 30 years. It wasn’t taking coins and wasn’t taking card payments.

The warden turned up and started ticketing cars. He started pushing coins through the machine saying ‘it does accept coins’.

Essentially when you punch in one hour and tried to put coins in it was not working. The majority of people don’t know how to download the app and this isn’t accessible for these people."

She says it was “carnage” and elderly people and those in wheelchairs were crying over the fear of getting a fine. "There was an old lady crying round the corner saying she didn’t want a ticket. I said to (the ticketer) you’re really targeting vulnerable people here, you don’t care."

A nurse from inside the hospital even intervened to appeal to the warden’s “better nature” but Sophie says they simply told people to appeal their tickets. The warden can be seen in the footage telling both Sophie and a member of staff that people could “appeal” their tickets.

Shockingly, this is a Council case!

Not sure how they've set up a Parking Places Order for a hospital car park but this should always be the case because there is a better ethic (usually).

Not here though:

A council spokesperson said: “There was a reported issue on Tuesday with some machines not accepting card payments.

We are sorry for any difficulties that this caused, however a range of alternatives remained in place including cash payments and online payments using the ‘MiPermit’ cashless app so people could continue to pay for parking.

We have reviewed the footage from the body worn cameras from the incident and consider that the officer attending the car park acted in an entirely professional manner.”