Unfair Parking Tickets: Have you appealed or spotted a loophole?

alancharmed

my mum, who is 75 was called by sandwell hospital urgently as her sister (my aunty) had just passed away As you would, she rushed to the hospital and parked her car by some houses.
Alas when she returned a parking ticket.
She came back and showed me so I drove with her to the spot.
She had parked in a permit only parking bay on the street. I knew it cause I am 6 foot tall and the sign was about 2 more feet above my head. MY MUM is only just under 5 ft tall, how on earth was she meant to see that.

Anyway to get it revoked, she had to send copies of the death certificate and a detailed statement of her emotions at the time. my god what is this world coming to !!!!!!

fizzlebottom

Parked car in a close near doctor's (didn't park on single yellow lines on main road as like to keep to rules of road). Carried sick child to doctors and back (away 15 mins) - had been clamped. £60 release fee rising to £100.

Hadn't seen recently erected notices of A3 size tacked high on wall of block of flats.

Useless trying to appeal, clamping firm wouldn't discuss it - very rude - Luton Borough Council wouldn't discuss it either. Paid up. Had conversation with 'gent' who came to release me and asked if he was hiding behind a lamp post when I had parked or was a resident ringing them with details. He replied that he wasn't hiding behind a lamp post - draw your own conclusions.

Three months later happened to drive past to see that LARGE notice posts had been cemented into the ground at entrance to close explaining 'Residents Only' Rang Luton Borough to say I was pleased that they agreed with me that notices were inadequate and that I wanted my money back. They agreed to 'look at it again' if I wrote in which I did and cheque arrived in post two weeks later.

Pleased that I got my money back but cross that Luton Borough must have known signs were inadequate and hadn't made any attempt to reimburse people who had been caught out.

antbarson

What was the fine for? Parking at 10pm in a Lincoln City car park. I missed the tiny writing at the bottom of the sign that said 'evening charge £1. Got the usual £30 now or £60 later ticket
What was the problem with it? It had the wrong year on it. It said 2006, which was then crossed out and the correct date, 2007 written over it.
Did you try and appeal and on what basis? I appealed on the basis the ticket was defaced an illegible.
Did it work? Absolutely. :cheesy:

madkingsoup

What was the fine for? Parking in a Westminster disabled bay without a valid permit, way back in 2006.
What was the problem with it? The blue disabled permit was clearly visible.
Did you try and appeal and on what basis? Yes, on the basis that the permit was valid.
Did it work? Eventually.
Other interesting stuff? The story goes thus:

We couldn't actually appeal until we had received the postal version of the ticket, so had a couple of weeks of anxiety there (why you can't just appeal as soon as you get the ticket on your car is beyond me - presumably this is to dissuade people from appealing at all).

When it arrived, it said that the permit had expired and gave the expiry date that the traffic warden had noted - totally made up, bearing no resemblance at all to the actual expiry date. Not one single digit was correct, so it couldn't have been misnoted or misread. So we sent a copy of the permit back.

Westminster replied saying that it was forged as the expiry date was handwritten. So we had to get a letter from our local council (Slough, who were very helpful) to say that all their disabled permits have handwritten expiry dates, and that this particular one hadn't expired. We sent that back with a further admonishment about the traffic warden clearly making up information.

The next response was that Westminster was "on this occasion" willing to waive the fine - so generous of them, as if they still didn't believe it and were doing us a favour out of the goodness of their hearts.

mtudor_2

What was the fine for? Parking in a residents bay without a valid permit.

Where was it? Near Baker Street, Westminster, London

What was the problem with it? The bay was outside a friends house where we have parked many times before. It has always been residents parking during the week but open parking at the weekend. We arrived late on Saturday night and didn't notice the change to residents only at any time (which had apparently happened only a few months earlier). The car was ticketed at 9am Sunday morning (£60 fine) and towed at 10am (£200 charge).

Did you try and appeal and on what basis? What we were really disgruntled about was the towing. There was plenty of parking available so we felt that the towing was a shameless attempt to make more money out of us. We would have paid the £60 fine, chalked it down to an innocent mistake and left it at that had it not been for the £200 towing fee. We made the point that one hour on an early Sunday morning was not really a fair amount of time to have rectified the mistake to avoid towing but apparently they can tow you immediately in a residents bay (what's fair about that!?). We also made the point that the change had not been well publicised, even our friend who lives there was not aware of it. There was no grace period for people to adjust, where warnings were placed on windscreens first. We had a witness statement for the fact that there was plenty of parking and some photographs.

Did it work? At first, no. The council replied with a standard "blah blah, fairly issued, blah blah, fine upheld". They addressed none of the points in the letter we sent. Our next stage was the parking adjudicator. The grounds for applying to the adjudicator are very narrow. We ticket the "fine was for the wrong amount" box, which I suppose could be seen as a tenuous link to our claim but we felt that we needed an independent view. Within three weeks we had a letter stating that the entire fine had been overturned and that we would be receiving a refund for the £260 (which we had to pay to get the car released, incidentally).

Other interesting points? It seems that you can appeal to the adjudicator if you can reasonable argue that your appeal can just about fit into one of the categories. I hold out some hope that the adjudicators offer a semblence of justice as clearly the council will try to uphold as many fines as possible, regardless of the circumstances.

Interestingly, once the case reached the adjudicator, the council didn't even file a defense. Could this mean that they knew they were on shaky ground from the start?

This individual went out with a Westminster Parking Attendant for a day, have a read for some of the dubious practices employed:
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~wjk/parking/walkabout.html

AndyMan

There is a hilarious Youtube site, showing Jonathan Taylor who received a parking ticket, from his local Authority, after they issued the ticket they added white lines and errected a no parking sign.

The video even shows a pile of rubble they didn't bother to move while painting the lines. It has a great music track sung by Jonathan Taylor. Maybe the next hit against parking charges, who knows. I like it.

He is actually going to the Tribunal today, good luck I'm sure he'll win.

Click on the link below to see the video.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OYNa5v7oYQM

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
AndyMan

sarahveronique

what was the fine for?
illegal parking in Sainsburys car park, Stafford.
There is a set car park for long term users and a seperate one for short term users

What was the problem with the fine?
The long term car park was completely full, at the side is a small car park for about 20 cars. I ASKED the PARKING ATTENDENT if i could park in the over flow car park, he said yes. I paid my money and parked...i recieved a ticket !

Appeal?
I wrote to the peeps that had issued the ticket, stating that the car park attendent had said i could park there as the main car park was full. Luckily i had spoken to the car park attendent and recieved his name. So i quoted this is my appeal.

Did i get my fine quashed?
I sure did, the attendent had told me incorrectly that i could park there.
I had the anguish but not the fine

sandraroffey

i had a long run in with canterbury city council over a parking ticket: the story goes thus - my daughter parked her car outside my pub, on a yellow line, and unloaded a box. in the time it took her to get from the car and up a flight of stairs, she had got a ticket. i appealed on her behalf and was told that she had been parked there for tweny mins. rubbish, so appealed again saying that it was impossible for her to have been there for 20 mins and even after letter after letter, it went all the way to tribunal. they just wouldnt listen to what i was saying, their reasoning was that they stood and watched her parked for twenty minutes when i knew that they never did that - they went away and came back later and assumed that the car that was parked there THEN, was the same car that was parked there earlier. and this is the reason why the ticket was cancelled - they said we had a blue car (as shown on the parking ticket) and we had a green car!!!!!!!!!! go to tribunal and take your reg doc with you.

also a good pointer - always, ALWAYS read the parking ticket carefully. IT MAY NOT EVEN BE FOR YOUR CAR!!!!! WE HAVE BEEN TOLD BY THE PARKING OFFICE THAT PEOPLE HAVE BEEN KNOWN TO TAKE THE TICKET OFF THEIR CAR AND STICK IT ON ANOTHER. THE POOR UNSUSPECTING SECOND PERSON VERY RARELY CHECKS THAT IT HAS THEIR OWN REG NUMBER ON IT, AND JUST PAYS IT!!!!



dont just check the parking bays etc., CHECK THE TICKET.

peghead25

There's an interesting loophole regarding parking scooters/motorbikes on pavements. I received a ticket for parking my scooter on the pavement (it was not obstructing the walkway and was parked overnight so I could lock it to a lamppost in a dodgy area of London as there were no scooter bays with lock facilities nearby). I failed in my appeal to get off it.

However, the parking attendant said if my scooter had a cover over it he could not give me a ticket as he was not allowed to touch the cover. I have since seen bikes parked on pavements with a carrier bag covering their number plate.

Would this 'no touching' cover rule also apply to cars?

CaroB_2

What was the fine for?

'Not parked within the markings of the bay or space'. The Council in Edinburgh recently introduced residents' permits to the area where I live. As I live in a tenement I have to park round the corner on a quieter road, where there is a mixture of permit and pay and display bays. As a permit holder I can park in both. I parked late on a Saturday evening and due to the positioning of other cars and ice on the road ended up parking straddling the permit and pay and display bays, which I've done many times before. On Thursday evening my husband walked passed the car and happened to notice I had 3 parking tickets (usual £30 now, £60 later ones), one for Mon, Tues & Wed.

What was the problem with it?

I'm allowed to park in both bays and wasn't aware that I wasn't permitted to park in both (the documentation with the permits didn't mention this). I've parked in the same place several times before and have seen others also do so without penalty. The same warden issued the tickets from Mon and Wed, a different one on Tues and yet the warden who passed the car (given there are pay and display bays I can't imagine a warden wouldn't have been on duty) on Thursday didn't issue a penalty.

Did you try and appeal and on what basis?

Yes. I wrote a long but polite letter explaining my grievances and stating that I felt I was being penalised for not using my car during the week, which surely the Council was trying to encourage, and that if I was indeed in violation of parking laws I would be willing to pay the first fine but that I felt the following two were taking liberties - the wardens could see that I hadn't had the chance to respond to their first Notice yet still felt they should penalise me.

Did it work?

Amazingly, yes. I had a nice letter back including a photo of my car's position and an explanation as to why I received the 3 tickets, but also an acknowledgement of the points raised in my letter and the cancellation of all 3 tickets. We kept an eye on that space for a few weeks afterwards and noticed several other permit holders parking across the line but didn't notice any more tickets being issued.