Parking Charge - Service Station

revolver

Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere but I can't find anything specific.

My son was driving on the M1 and one of his tyres burst.  It was a "smart" motorway and therefore no hard shoulder, so he pulled into the nearest service station.  He called the RAC and to cut a long story short, it took 3.5 to 4 hours to get sorted.  As soon as the repairs were done, he left.  

He then received a penalty notice asking for £100 - or £60 if he paid within 14 days.He appealed and explained what happened but got a reply from an AI bot to say that they didn't accept his appeal.

Is he obliged to pay this or can he just ignore it? 

Coupon-mad

Who is they? 

ParkingEye or CP Plus?

Scotland or England/Wales?

Why did he drive out past the exit camera (bound to get a PCN doing that) when all services only allow 2 hours free parking?

He needs to read the NEWBIES sticky thread because if this was England or Wales it can't be ignored.

That is the thread he needs. No link needed.

zagubov

Not much help in your case maybe, the most MSE way to do this in the future is to research the nearest supermarkets to the motorways and park there. 

They have photographic evidence of when you arrived/ left but also know if rescue/repair vehicles arrived which you’d obviously photograph with your phone on arrival and departure.

We’re evolving towards a system where we’ll all need dashcams for our own parking times and cameraphones to take photos of all times / number-plates (including repair vehicles)  and repairs in progress so these morons can’t harass us due to our emergencies.

Coupon-mad

Not a good suggestion in our experience, to seek out a Supermarket (especially if it is after opening hours). Many only allow ten minutes when the store is closed. Most use ANPR for no valid reason whatsoever except to make money for the aggressive bullyboy ANPR operator.

All they really need is a pole barrier, if they don't want people parking overnight.  Adds to site security - which ANPR doesn't -  and avoids having a profiteering system that inevitably 'fines' your own staff & customers during the day.

But no, the Supermarkets and hotels are talked into 'free' ANPR schemes based on misleading spiel.  Only the PPCs and their legal limpets make money from such schemes.

IMHO, they need removing from most car parks completely.

Avoid private car parks altogether.

Just to be clear to the OP, we are NOT saying that the driver is bang to rights and we are ABSOLUTELY on your side and he won't be paying a penny.

B789

revolver said:

My son was driving on the M1 and one of his tyres burst.  It was a "smart" motorway and therefore no hard shoulder, so he pulled into the nearest service station.  He called the RAC and to cut a long story short, it took 3.5 to 4 hours to get sorted.  As soon as the repairs were done, he left.  

He then received a penalty notice asking for £100 - or £60 if he paid within 14 days.He appealed and explained what happened but got a reply from an AI bot to say that they didn't accept his appeal.

Is he obliged to pay this or can he just ignore it? 

Neither... depending on where this happened. However, if it was in England/Wales, this is exactly the kind of vicissitude that Jopson v Homeguard discusses:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9ezhkj6epu66l1r/JOPSON-V-HOMEGUARD-2906J-Approved.pdf?dl=0

revolver

Thanks for all the replies.  The notice is from Group Nexus.  The tyre burst when he was in the fast lane of the motorway and he just wanted/needed to get off the motorway asap, so driving until he got to a junction wasn't an option.  The service station was very close so he went there.  He agrees there are signs saying there's a maximum 2 hour stay but he had to wait for the RAC to arrive and sort the problem as he couldn't drive away with a burst tyre.

KeithP

revolver said:

He agrees there are signs saying there's a maximum 2 hour stay but he had to wait for the RAC to arrive and sort the problem as he couldn't drive away with a burst tyre.

But he could've spoken to the people in the service station.
They probably had the authority to whitelist a vehicle in those circumstances.

I often trot out this story...

It won't help you this time, but a couple of years ago something similar happened to me.

I did my shopping in Tesco and upon returning to my car it wouldn't start.

I knew it would be several hours before I could get help so sought guidance at the customer services desk.

The lady there typed my vehicle's registration number into the terminal on her desk and announced "You now have permission to park for twenty four hours. Please speak to me again if that's not long enough".

revolver

I think the moral of the tale for my son is, read the signs and comply with what it says.  It clearly stated that to stay longer than 2 hours he'd have to pay £26.

Coupon-mad

revolver said:

I think the moral of the tale for my son is, read the signs and comply with what it says.  It clearly stated that to stay longer than 2 hours he'd have to pay £26.

But he doesn't pay it.

fisherjim

revolver said:

I think the moral of the tale for my son is, read the signs and comply with what it says.  It clearly stated that to stay longer than 2 hours he'd have to pay £26.

No the moral of this story is that a private parking company should accept the mitigating circumstance that a motorist cannot comply with its made up terms and conditions when the vehicle is immobilised but they carry on with their scam regardless.

The BPA COP insists on a two stage appeals process for just this type of occurrence to be considered, in reality the PPC's are too greed ridden to use it as intended.

B789

revolver said:

I think the moral of the tale for my son is, read the signs and comply with what it says.  It clearly stated that to stay longer than 2 hours he'd have to pay £26.

No it isn't. If the signs were not obvious, prominent or illegible, that is also a defence. Whatever happens, you do not let your son pay these scammers.

When he appealed, did he reveal the identity of the driver? The usual response to a Group Nexus PCN is the following:

"This is an appeal by the registered keeper - No driver details will be given. Please do NOT try the usual Group Nexus Trick of asking for driver details in order to get around the fact your NTK does not comply with POFA. As there is no keeper liability then liability cannot flow from the driver to the keeper and thus is an automatic win at POPLA. Therefore, please cancel the notice or issue a POPLA code at which point you will auto withdraw."