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| Parking
Tickets... |
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| Defending yourself against Clamping and Removal.
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| It’s every motorist’s
worst nightmare... you park your car for a few minutes, only to return to
find it with a parking ticket... clamped... or even worse... towed away. As well as the delay and
inconvenience, you will undoubtedly be asked to pay a substantial fee as
well. |
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| Clamping and removal have
been around for many years, though originally they were limited to busy
town and city centres. The police were once the only people with the power
to remove illegally parked vehicles, but they used this power only to deal
with vehicles that were dangerously parked or causing an obstruction.
Clamping was sometimes used as a deterrent in places where illegal parking
was seen as a particular problem. |
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| All that changed with the
arrival of decriminalised parking enforcement, however. This system, first
introduced in London in 1994, allowed local councils to take over the
enforcement of parking regulations from the police. It’s no coincidence
that, from then on, both clamping and removal have become far more common:
[2001 = 795,000: 2005 = 3.4million.]
For many councils, clamping hapless motorists with nowhere else to park
provides a valuable boost to their finances. And councils with [very
expensive] removal trucks and equipment have every incentive to issue a
parking ticket to anyone parked ‘illegally’ rather than letting them stand idle. |
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| Private clampers operating on
private land [e.g. pub or shop car parks] are an even more serious hazard
for the motorist. They are unregulated, can charge any fee they like for
releasing your vehicle, and will often only accept cash as payment. Although there have been calls for action to regulate clamping on private
land since 1993, as yet no action has been taken, and clamping is still
seen by many less-than-savoury operators as a licence to print money. |
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| So what can you do to avoid
being held over a barrel in this way? Obviously, the best solution is to
avoid being clamped in the first place. However, if you are unfortunate
enough to suffer this fate, there is one very good defence you can use.
The law says that, to be clamped legally, 'a driver must give his
consent to this happening, otherwise the clamping is illegal'.
Therefore, if there
are no warning signs to indicate this... or the signs are not
sufficiently prominent... the clamping may not be enforceable. |
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| A case in the Court of Appeal
in April 2000 against the London Borough of Waltham Forest showed how this
principle can work in a motorist’s favour. The plaintiff, Marina Vine,
won her case because the judges accepted her argument that she had not
seen signs indicating that unauthorised vehicles would be clamped. This
case demonstrated that clampers must ensure that warning signs are
sufficiently prominent to prove beyond doubt that motorists parking
illegally have consented to the risk of clamping. If motorists say that
they did not see the signs, the clampers cannot simply say ‘tough’ and
demand payment. |
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| Exactly this same principle
was applied by a motorist called Peter Cartner in October 2002 to defend
himself against an accusation of criminal damage. Cartner used a crowbar
to remove two wheel clamps from his car which he had left in the car park
of the Black Bull pub in Haworth, Yorkshire. There were signs stating that
unauthorised vehicles would be clamped, but Cartner argued he did not
believe they would apply to him, as he knew the landlord. The magistrates
accepted his argument that he did not think he was at risk, and therefore
did not give his consent to being clamped. In fact, the landlord Cartner
knew had moved on, but Cartner said it was only after being clamped that
he found out about this. |
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| Obviously magistrates would
require a good reason for accepting that you had not consented to the risk
of clamping... but if you have one, there is a very good possibility you
can remove the clamps yourself and legally avoid paying the removal fee. |
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| Published with
permission of...
UK-Driving-Secrets.com
- learn how to cancel
speeding tickets, beat parking tickets, get free driving insurance,
claim against uninsured drivers, and the secrets of exploiting dozens
of UK driving legal loopholes. Ex-traffic police offer of over 20
years unveils all the secrets in this new 2008 guide. [For
more Information products... check out the following...
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| Parking
Tickets. |
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| Handing out
parking tickets is now a £1billion industry... rather than a genuine
attempt to keep the road network flowing freely. The work is often
carried out on behalf of local councils by over-zealous private
contractors... who are out to make as much money as they can. They
will literally, issue a fine the minute your parking ticket... metre...
runs out. But, unlike being given a parking ticket by a Police officer... if
a parking attendant or traffic warden is in the middle of writing out a
parking ticket... there is
nothing to stop you jumping in your car and driving off. If they
don't fix it to your vehicle... it is not valid. [April 2008: there
are some changes to this... it is now possible to get parking fines sent
through the post if you get caught on cctv... though this is expected to
apply mainly to those who stop along a red-route or on double yellow
lines... rather than those who have exceeded the time limit on a
pay-and-display parking ticket.] |
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| Companies will
often try to intimidate drivers by suggesting that unpaid penalties will
be increased. This could happen if you just ignore the problem and
the courts... bailiffs become involved. But if you make a formal
objection... the amount of the fine is frozen until the issue is
settled. So, if you don't want to just hand over the cash...
don't! Fight them and you might very well win. The number of
appeals has risen by 30% in the last year alone... and about 2 in 3 of
those who object to a parking ticket win their appeals. |
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| How to
Appeal... |
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| Start by
appealing direct to the Council... let them know that the parking ticket was
unjustified. You have... witnesses... evidence... 'proof'... and you
will fight them all the way. They're a lot more interested in raking
in some easy cash than defending any 'principles'... so, if they think
they are in for a fight they might just back off. |
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| [See... Beat
the Wheel Clampers.
You won't have to argue
with the clamping thugs. And you won't have to fill out lots
of complex paperwork. Just pay the fine as normal, then send
off a simple template letter. Your money will be refunded
within a couple of weeks. [You'll need this info before you
get clamped.] |
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| If they don't... wait for the official paperwork and fill in the forms and contest it
officially with an Independent Parking Adjudicator. There are two
relevant addresses that might come in handy if you get a parking ticket... |
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| Outside
London. |
In a London
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| [NPAS] National Parking |
[PTAS] Parking and
Traffic |
| Adjudication
Service, |
Appeals Service, |
| 6th Floor, |
P.O. Box 1010, |
| Barlow House, |
Sutton, |
| Minshull Street, |
Surrey, |
| Manchester, |
SM1 4SW. |
| M1 3DZ. |
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| Parking
Attendants often bend or break rules to meet their targets... earn a
commission... and have been found breaking rules on numerous occasions...
so their evidence at a hearing will not necessarily be accepted. The
NPAS has specifically said that councils must not play "fast and
loose" with the legal restrictions that apply to issuing
Tickets. In 2006 57% of all appeals heard were successful.
Your chances of success will also depend on which council you are up
against... 'Ribble Valley' didn't even contest many of their appeals and
lost 100% of the time... while 'Reigate and Banstead' vigorously contested
everything and lost only 9% of the time. |
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| Check all the
details on the Parking Ticket... their paperwork is often sloppy or illegible...
and if they haven't filled in all the boxes properly the ticket
should be invalid. Check... Time: Date: Street: Registration Number:
etc. Also check that road markings are sufficiently clear.
Wardens will often issue instant parking tickets to people who stop on double
yellow lines. If you 'Park'... lock up and leave the vehicle, they
can give you a parking ticket. If you are 'Waiting'... just sitting in your
vehicle, they can still give you a parking ticket, [although you can always drive
away before they complete it.] But, you are allowed to 'Stop' on double yellow lines in
order to 'load' or 'unload' your vehicle: [unless there are also yellow
markings on the kerb... then you can't.] |
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| The rules here are
rather messy and open to interpretation... 'Loading' only covers
heavy, awkward packages or multiple trips. So you would
probably be o.k. if you were moving house, but it doesn't cover
someone with a couple of bags of shopping. Somewhere in
between there is plenty of scope for disagreement with a traffic
warden as to what constitutes 'Loading'. So, make sure you
know your rights, read what it says in The Highway Code, and take
note of any signs which give details about Stopping, Standing,
Waiting, Parking or Loading. |
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| If there are any
"independent witnesses" that can back up what you say try to get
their names and addresses. [i.e. not one of your friends... although
I guess if would be rather difficult for them to prove that any witness
was not truly "independent".] |
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| If you are
contesting an expired 'Pay-and-Display' ticket... if would be very
beneficial to your case if you actually had a parking ticket which covered
the time and date that the Penalty Notice was issued: [even though you
could easily have asked some other departing motorist for their parking ticket.] Insist that it was clearly displayed and that the Attendant
had obviously not bothered looking very hard to find it. [It
might be helpful to see a parking attendant issuing a ticket because many of them now take digital photographs of the vehicle's
windows and dashboard to prove there was not
a valid ticket on display.] |
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| The NPAS has
criticised councils whose wardens instantly slap tickets on cars whose
drivers have gone for change to pay for their Ticket. It said
that... Motorists stuck at a paying machine behind a 'fumbling or
indecisive' driver should be exempt from a Ticket. NPAS said, 'Some
councils hold the unbending belief that the motorist's duty is to have the
right change in their possession before entering a car park... whatever
the circumstances. Others appear to regard the act of going for
change as a contravention in its own right. This is not the case'.
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| Your case would
be that much stronger if the council had contributed to your absence in
any way. It may be that you did bring the right change for a
pay-and-display ticket machine... but, as is often the case... the machine
would not accept one/some/any of the coins... and you still had to go off
and get more change somewhere. Or that you had to find 2? 3? 4?
different ticket machines before you found one that was actually
working. In these kind of circumstances you can find yourself being
'punished' even though you have done absolutely nothing to deserve it!
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| This may all seem
like a lot of mucking about... but it shouldn't be something that takes up
much of your time: [these people are relying on the fact that relatively
few people will bother to contest their parking tickets.] And if the worst
comes to the worst... you will just have to pay up the amount of the
original parking ticket. The choice is yours!
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| Private
Car Parks... |
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as Shopping Centres and Supermarkets should have a board up near the
entrance outlining the terms and conditions for use of the car park...
costs, length of stay, etc. The use of these car parks are dealt
with under contract law and are different from parking on a public highway
which comes under criminal law. By entering the car park you are
automatically agreeing to these terms... but the agreement is only between
the owners of the property and the driver of the vehicle... not the owner
of the vehicle. If you receive a request for payment through the
post you can inform them that you were not driving... you are not sure who
was... and they have no legal right to force you to identify the
driver. [If they produce some evidence to show you were the driver
it is better to say nothing than to deny it.] If an official
approaches you in the car park asking for details... you are under no
obligation to assist them. |
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| People
patrolling these car parks may look very official... and any ticket they
give you will look very similar to those issued by the council... but they
do not carry the same authority. They work on the basis that many
people will simply be intimidated into paying them. If you do not
they will have to take you to the Small Claims Court to get their
money. The ticket might say that there is a fixed penalty of
£60-100 because you... overstayed the time limit... your ticket ran
out... parked incorrectly in a bay??? which was a breach of
contract. But, they have no legal entitlement to impose a 'Fine'...
even if you are 'guilty' they are only entitled to recover any 'loses'
they might have suffered: [i.e. if they charge £2 per hour parking
fees... and you over-stayed by 2 hours without paying... they would be
entitled to £4... and that is all.] These companies are not going
to take this sort of case to court... so don't be intimidated by all the
legal jargon on the ticket. If you don't pay... they will give up. |
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