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

donaldtramp

Firstly www.pepipoo.com should be the website of choice, all free, and loads of folk willing to help who are REALLY, REALLY knowledgeable about the subject.

What was the fine for?
Parking on a single yellow
What was the problem with it?
The parking ticket did not comply with the law
Did you try and appeal and on what basis?
That the ticket did not have two dates on them.
Did it work?
Fantastically well!!:beer:

Other interesting stuff?

It led to :j£2.65 Million:j being written off:rotfl::rotfl:(with a wee bit more work!):

See article here....
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/aberdeen?articleid=4009055

So suppose you could call that a success!!!

katie.leese

Was near Leeds uni.
Looked for signs but there were none. Got the usual £30 in 7 days £60 after fine.
What had happened was that someone had stolen or knocked off the sign that said it was permit holders only.
I paid it cos I no way to prove it - no camera. Gutted!

tomstickland

zedman63 wrote: »

hi got a ticket for parking in the B&Q car park in high wycombe. I parked there at 6 am till 6.28am as a lorry had blocked the entrance to my work which is next door, I moved my car from the nearly empty huge car park as soon as possible 1/2 an hour and received a fpn of £75 which if it was'nt paid within 2 weeks would go up to £125. I went to the store as it had surely to be a good neighbour if nothing else I mean we put up with all the traffic chaos they cause, but they were not interested at all I was fobbed off on an assistant manager who did'nt give a rats a**e. My company have appealed and they have as a gesture of goodwill cut the charge in 1/2 to £37.50 if I pay within a week.................. good for you B&Q I certainly will avoid shopping with you ever again as this is pathetic and the company i work for have put up a sign asking the other 40 employees to avoid it in the same way, please if anyone actually reads this avoid B&Q I've put a curse on them, they're going down....

You shouldn't have paid anything at all. See the endless posts about private parking invoices.

kittykitten

I'm hoping some of you wonderful people will be able to answer a question that came up in conversation at work last week - not a genuine scenario that happened, but a theoretical one that we've been very lucky hasn't happened so far. This might take some explaining so bear with me. Here goes...

I work as an occupational therapist in the hospital in Darlington. A large part of my job involves assessing people's ability to manage at home after a hospital admission, and providing equipment (often heavy specialist chairs etc) to assist them at home. Regularly I take patients on a home visit, so I drive them to their house, spend an hour assessing what their injury/medical condition means they can/can't manage to do, then drive them back to the hospital. We also have to deliver the aforementioned equipment to patients' houses, as often it's essential for safety on discharge and if they live alone there's no way of getting it delivered by the equipment company, so they bring it to us and we take it to the patient's home on discharge day.

Anyway, anyone who knows Darlington will know it's not the best place for parking. A lot of the town, particularly towards the town centre, is terraced residential streets (never good, as terraced streets have no off-street parking), many of which are on quite steep hills. Bearing in mind we're talking about patients with greatly reduced mobility here, mostly elderly people, and heavy equipment, it's essential for us to try and park as close as possible to their front door. We've been told by our employer that if we get a parking ticket while on work business, whether we're in the works car or our own cars, it's our own fault and will be our responsibility. This is bound to happen sooner or later, as Darlington is a maze of resident bays and double yellow lines, particularly around the town centre.

I do always put a note on the car (usually on NHS headed paper) if I'm parked illegally, saying who I am, that I'm with a hospital patient, which house I'm in and approx how long I'll be, but traffic wardens are ruthless, so I doubt this would cut much weight.

Any ideas how we can either prevent tickets, or do we have grounds to appeal if we're issued a ticket? I know I'm often essentially parked illegally, but I'm sorry I'm not going to make a little old lady with a broken hip walk 500 metres to her front door when I can park in the residents bay outside her door. I'm trying to help, not give my patients heart attacks!

nj1978

michaels wrote: »

I was in a hire car (free Renault for the weekend, see motoring board) and stopped on a yellow line to allow my family to disembark - as you are allowed to do under the regulations. The enforcement camera obviously filmed the vehicle stationary and a ticket was sent to the hire company. The hire company policy is to pay the tickets plus charge an admin fee (first I knew of it was a #90 charge to my credit card) even though there is the option for them to return the ticket to the council with the name and address of the hirer.

The good bit is that the parking regulations say that once a fine has been paid it can not be appealed so even though I committed no offence I can not recover the fine or the fee. You have been warned :mad:

Hi, I am a fleet manager, and am lucky enough to deal with PCN's on a regular basis. You are correct in what you are saying with regards to once the PCN has been paid you are unable to appeal. However it does work slightly different with hire companies. I have been dealing with Enterprise hire company today with regards to a PCN that they have paid, and they have given me a letter of authority to allow me to appeal the penalty charge notice with the council. I would ask the hire company again, as its not their decision to make when is costs you (the customer) money. Hopefully you should then be able to appeal

Mylex

I recently received a fine from a private company for a vehicle registered in my name, but I was not driving. There was only a photo on the cars reg plate. I found a great site for this - wrote a short letter stating if they could not prove I was the driver please do not contact me again - worked, saved £45 http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?autocom=ibwiki&cmd=article&id=56

bicycle_repair_man_2

Jane_Rowley wrote: »

I parked in a marked parking bay at 6.30pm in Raynes Park. I saw a parking attendant and double checked the parking sign, which was as clear as mud. The traffic warden disappeared, probably hiding in a doorway, so I couldn't double check. I decided he was only there for cars parked on double yellows and I must be ok in a P bay at night. I left the car for 5 minutes and returned to find a ticket. I was shocked. I took a photo of the sign with a digital camera and asked friends if they thought I had parked illegally - they agreed I should not have been fined, so I appealed. Merton council would not accept the signage was wrong, but a few weeks later they replaced the sign with one which restricted parking before 7pm. I called the council but they denied the sign had changed and again refused to cancel my ticket! I took photos of the new sign and showed them at the appeal hearing, but even the photographic evidence wasn't good enough for the adjudicator who quite frankly wasn't very bright and had trouble grasping the facts. It was only because I had taken the camera with me and could show the dated photo of the original sign on the camera that he believed me and upheld my appeal. Still, he only awarded me £30 compensation for all my stress and trouble, including a day off work to attend the hearing, which is no deterent for shameful councils and still left me out of pocket and very angry. The whole parking system in this country is a scandal and everyone knows it is just a terribly unfair stealth tax. No wonder Labour are so unpopular.

I wouldn't blame the government for this. It was the Tories who brought in the regulations that allowed councils to control or contract out parking enforcement. If it had been left to the police like it used to then we wouldn't have any of these problems.

hxm

I'm pretty careful about parking and have only had one ticket. It was a very wintry day and I was taking my brother to his friend's in Yorkshire. We stopped off about halfway in Sedburgh to get a cup of tea in a cafe. There was a Pay & Display car park which was completely empty. I parked in the corner and conscientiously went to get a ticket from the machine, only to find it had no tickets in it. In the time it took us to have a cup of tea, my car was ticketed. A "flying traffic warden" had been and gone, after re-stocking the machine with tickets. I was absolutely furious and as soon as we got to my brother's friend's house, I rang the telephone number given to complain. I gave all the details and was told that as the ticket had been issued, she couldn't be scrapped but I needed to return the paperwork with a covering letter to say why I objected to paying! I did have a bit of a rant, saying that as the guy had put new tickets into the machine, he must have been perfectly well aware that I hadn't been able to buy a ticket. Her reply was that maybe I should ensure that I always had pen and paper handy in the car to write a note if I found myself in the same situation again! I wrote a strong letter of complaint the next day and the penalty was revoked.

robellett

Don't know if anyone can help me -
I am physically and mentally handicapped and parked in a Birmingham street, with my Disabled Badge displayed, adjacent to a parking meter spot, though with a single yellow line, on a saturday afternoon. There was a sign which I thought meant the area was for taxis in the evening. I needed to park to find a bathroom to use, as my toileting arrangements can be severe and urgent. I returned to find a ticket, which mentions that I am a blue badge holder, though parking in a restricted street during prescribed hours - I must have mixed up am and pm hours, though was distressed whilst rushing to find a toilet somewhere. Does anyone have any advice please on how I could contest this?
I realise this is not a successful story, but I don't know where to turn to for help. Thank you all.

tmn1966

My sister did similar to you gb.dad; parked up then an hour later moved up the road a bit. She got a ticket too. I always assumed you could do that as the sign says "no return within two hours" etc, meaning no return to that spot!

Her penalty notice was £25 if paid within two weeks or it doubled after. The only reason she parked on the road was because someone who worked up the road from her had cheekily parked on her work's forecourt as there was no room on theirs which made no room for her on her forecourt! She works on a very busy road where the local council have an unwritten agreement with the businesses in the road that employees can park their cars on the forecourts as to go about their business. She uses her car for going about her job and it seemed very unfair that she should receive a ticket for it, considering she moved it before the hour was up.

Do you think she has a good case if she appeals?