Wheel clamping and towing - law changes 1.10.12

[Snowy]

The law changes in a couple of weeks time to outlaw wheel clamping and towing of vehicles on private land. Its quite involved so if you're interested take a look here:

http://www.britishparking.co.uk/AOS-Members-Toolkit-for-POFA

[Geordie Stu]

OMG it is ::) :D

[Marmalade]

I'd prefer clamping stayed.
If people are too self important to check for clamping signs and just dumping cars on other peoples because it's too far to walk from a car park then getting clamped was their own stupid fault.
Now we are all going to be worse off as getting a ticket from private car parks will be more enforceable as you will be legally required to give driver details as you are to councils etc.
So noe overstaying in the services for 15 mins or going shopping a bit to long will mean parking tickets hassle instead of ignoring it.


Parking tickets issued to motorists on private land are presently the responsibility of the driver. Currently the registered keeper can effectively pretend that they were not the driver (when, in fact, in many cases they were) - to avoid proper and legitimate action for breach of contract or trespass. This is unfair and the new Act recognises this by providing for a duty on the keeper to identify the driver when enquiries are made by the landowner or his agent. Failing this, the keeper becomes liable for any parking charges due as a result of the breach of contract or trespass. This will make it easier for parking operators to more effectively manage parking on private land. This ensures universal fairness.

[wiltshire builders]

I'd prefer clamping stayed.
If people are too self important to check for clamping signs and just dumping cars on other peoples because it's too far to walk from a car park then getting clamped was their own stupid fault.
Now we are all going to be worse off as getting a ticket from private car parks will be more enforceable as you will be legally required to give driver details as you are to councils etc.
So noe overstaying in the services for 15 mins or going shopping a bit to long will mean parking tickets hassle instead of ignoring it.


Parking tickets issued to motorists on private land are presently the responsibility of the driver. Currently the registered keeper can effectively pretend that they were not the driver (when, in fact, in many cases they were) - to avoid proper and legitimate action for breach of contract or trespass. This is unfair and the new Act recognises this by providing for a duty on the keeper to identify the driver when enquiries are made by the landowner or his agent. Failing this, the keeper becomes liable for any parking charges due as a result of the breach of contract or trespass. This will make it easier for parking operators to more effectively manage parking on private land. This ensures universal fairness.

If people are too self inportant to check what time their ticket expires.........

This is a good thing. Clampers have had it too easy for too long.
It was a license to print money and tantamount to extorsion.

[Swanny]

Less than 1% of parking tickets are appealed, mainly because motorists don’t know how. Two thirds of appeals are successful and 30% of those appealed never go to arbitration and one third of tickets should never have been issued. When you appeal, the Local Authority is likely to feed you meaningless and confusing information in order to get you to give up on your appeal. They may even tell you to pay the fine and then appeal, knowing full well that you can’t appeal after the fine is paid and they may well tell you that additional charges and costs will be added if you don’t pay immediately. Their objective is to part you from your money and they may even issue an automatic rejection of the appeal and fail to follow the appeals procedure which they are required to follow.

In some cases, the Council knowingly reject your valid grounds for appeal, hoping that you will give up and pay them. If you continue with your appeal, then 40% of the time, the Council will not turn up for the adjudication and so they lose automatically.

Many parking tickets are invalid and the appeal will be immediately successful because of this. The people issuing tickets are instructed to issue so many each day that they are very rushed when writing out each ticket. Each ticket must show:

1. Your vehicle registration. If this is wrong, they will not be able to determine your address and so the ticket can just be ignored.

2. The make of your vehicle. A copy of your V5 form demonstrates that the ticket is invalid.

3. The precise location of the alleged offence must be shown on the ticket, that is, the house number outside which it was parked, or some other exact location described. If only a road name is given, then ask the Council to specify exactly where your vehicle was supposed to have been.

4. Date and Time. If these are not shown correctly, then write to the Council stating that your vehicle was not at that location at that time, and if they can’t prove otherwise, then the ticket has to be cancelled.

5. If there is an entry describing the colour of your vehicle and that entry is clearly wrong as the stated colour could not easily be mistaken for the actual colour, then the ticket is invalid.

6. If the stated offence is not correct, then the ticket is not valid.

7. If the amount of the fine is incorrect, then the ticket is invalid.

8. The traffic Management Act 2004 requires that tickets which have been placed on vehicles must state:

a. The date on which the notice is served.
b. The name of the enforcement authority.
c. The vehicle registration.
d. The date and time of the offence.
e. The grounds on which the fine is thought to be payable.
f. The amount of the penalty charge.
g. A statement that the charge must be paid not later than the last day of the period of 28 days beginning with the date on which the ticket was served.
h. That if the fine is paid within fourteen days starting on the issue date, that there will be a reduction of any applicable discount.
i. The manner in which the charge must be paid.
j. If the fine is not paid within the period of g. above, then a notice to the owner may be served by the enforcement authority on the owner of the vehicle.

If any of these are wrong or are omitted, or if the ticket is issued more than six months after the alleged offence, then the ticket is invalid and unenforceable. Interestingly, they will not admit that the actual owner of ‘your’ vehicle is the DVLA and that you are only the “registered keeper” of that vehicle.

The exact wording is critical and the ticket becomes invalid if the prescribed wording is not there. The required wording is:

1. The date of the notice, which must be the date on which it is posted and this must be on the main body of the ticket as the tear-off section at the bottom does not form part of the actual Penalty Charge Notice. It has to say “Date of Notice” and if it doesn’t, then it is invalid.

2. That the penalty charge must be paid not later than the last day of the period of 28 days beginning with the date on which the penalty charge notice is served.

3. That if the penalty charge is paid not later than the applicable date, the penalty charge will be reduced by the amount of any applicable discount.

4. That if after the last day of the period referred to in 2. above, then (i) no representations have been made in accordance with regulation 4 of the Representations and Appeals Regulations; and (ii) the penalty charge has not been paid, the enforcement authority may increase the penalty charge by the amount of any applicable surcharge and take steps to enforce payment of the charge as so increased;

5. The amount of the increased penalty charge; and

6. That the penalty charge notice is being served by post for one of the following reasons:

(i) that the penalty charge notice is being served by post on the basis of a record produced by an approved device;

(ii) that it is being so served, because a civil enforcement officer attempted to serve a penalty charge notice by affixing it to the vehicle or giving it to the person in charge of the vehicle but was prevented from doing so by some person; or

(iii) that it is being so served because a civil enforcement officer had begun to prepare a penalty charge notice for service in accordance with regulation 9, but the vehicle was driven away from the place in which it was stationary before the civil enforcement officer had finished preparing the penalty charge notice or had served it in a

[Swanny]

accordance with regulation 9

Failure to ensure correct wording is printed on the PCN means that the ticket does not conform to legally recognised standards and so is unenforceable. For example, if the ticket refers to “a sum” rather than “a penalty” then the that is enough to invalidate the ticket. There is more detail on this along with successful appeal cases which can be quoted and templates for letters of appeal at www.NoMoreParkingTickets.com. Remember that the Council is doing a volume business here and is not inclined to put very much effort into any one ticket if it is disputed. A recent news item remarked that one Council has twelve million pounds outstanding in unpaid parking fines. Now that is definitely a volume business - one which is rigged against the motorist in many different ways and which relies almost entirely on the motorist’s ignorance of the exact details.

Yellow lines and parking restriction notices have to be clearly marked and in good condition for them to be enforceable. If they are not and a ticket is issued, then photograph them to support your appeal.

A vehicle may not be clamped or towed away from a ‘paid for’ marked bay during the thirty minutes following the expiry of the ‘paid for’ period.

If all of the ticket issuing machines in a Pay and Display area are not working, you can park there without paying, but leave a note on the vehicle saying that all of the ticket machines areout of order.

You may legally stop for loading in a Pay and Display marked bay without displaying a ticket.

Parking on Private Land
Private parking tickets are only notices issued by a company saying that they intend to take you to court for trespassing on their land or alternatively, breaching your “contract” with them and they are offering you the option of paying them and settling out of court.

Only the driver can be subject to any charges - the owner is not involved in any way nor does the driver have any legal obligation to identify the driver. If you don’t pay, then the company has to take the matter through the small claims court where they will be required to prove that the driver entered into a contract with them and then breached that contract. There is no criminal element involved in any of this.

If you were not the driver and receive a reminder through the post, just inform them that you do not know who the driver was at that time and tell them never to contact you again. If you were the driver, then ask them to provide proof of who the driver was at that time. If they make a claim, then they have to prove who the driver was and you do not need to prove that you were not the driver. Much more detail is available in an eBook from the www.NoMoreParkingTickets.com web site.

Consent All men are born equal and so nobody has the right to command you, make demands of you or force you to do anything. The most that anyone can do is to make you an offer. Even though they may say that it is an "Order" or a "Demand" or a "Summons", it is in reality, an offer which you are free to accept, or not accept, as you choose. This is why they keep using "Applications", "Registrations" and "Submissions" as those things give them power over you through your (unwitting) consent. They are hoping that you will break the law by the way that you deal with their offer. If you just ignore the offer, you are stepping into what is called "dishonour" so the only effective way of dealing with the offer is 'conditional acceptance' as already mentioned. If you accept their offer without imposing any conditions, then you are accepting that they have the power to order you around, and that places you under their authority, because you have just chosen to accept their offer (even though you may not understand that you are accepting their offer for them to have authority over you).

They are also very keen to get you arguing with them as that also places you in "dishonour" and if there is a court case, the judge just looks to see who is in dishonour. Remember, in civil cases the court is a commercial operation where the judge doesn't care who is right or wrong, just who will pay the court. So, we accept all offers but with our conditions attached to each offer and that prevents them taking us to court - remember, courts only deal with disputes and if you accept (conditionally) each offer, there can't be any dispute and so there can't be any kind of court involvement. Some offers are "Notices" and a Notice has to be clear, concise and unequivocal. You can discharge a Notice by seeking clarification, that is by writing back, asking the meaning of a word, stating that you don't understand the word. They were hoping that you would just ignore the Notice and so go into dishonour and become liable.

A Parking Ticket is a "Notice", and please be aware that a Parking Ticket is not a bill, but instead it is a Notice telling you that there is something to which you should pay attention. So you write back saying that you have noticed their Notice and that as they appear to think that you owe them money, you are happy to pay, but first you need some verification before payment is made. "First, there is a need to verify the debt, so please send me a bill with a signature on it. Also, I need to see the lawful, two-party contract supporting that bill". As they can't supply either of those things, it kills the claim stone dead, so just keep insisting that they either supply those things or else

[Swanny]

stop bothering you.

An interesting alternative is that if they send you a final notice marked "Remittance", then that piece of paper actually has the value of the money amount written on it. The really silly thing is that you have the option to write "Accepted for value" on that piece of paper, sign it with your name and post it back to them, and technically, that concludes the matter by paying the amount demanded. Who was it that said "it's a mad, mad, mad, mad world"? Actually, the payment comes out of the vast amount of money which your strawman has accumulated over the years, and your signing the document as "Accepted for value", authorises them to take the payment from your strawman account and that suits them as well as suiting you. There is a web site for checking how much you strawman is worth - see this video where the presenter discovers that his strawman has $224,440,000 as it's current balance and the web site also states who is currently managing the strawman account for him. Your writing "Accepted for Value" means that you are authorising them to take the amount they want out of the strawman account which has such a large amount in it that the balance will hardly be affected at all.




The above maybe of use to someone wishing to challenge parking tickets :)

[camera.op76]

Nobody listens... just accept it the way it is! You're wasting you time Swanny!

[Swanny]

Yea I know, we can but try ;D

[Beamer]

A while back 6 of us were issued with tickets in a car park because we didnt buy tickets. There was no parking for motorbikes and no tariff for motorbikes.......so we appealed.....and won !!
It is worth appealing if you can even if its just to get an extension on the time you have to pay by lol

;D

[Marmalade]

I'd prefer clamping stayed.
If people are too self important to check for clamping signs and just dumping cars on other peoples because it's too far to walk from a car park then getting clamped was their own stupid fault.
Now we are all going to be worse off as getting a ticket from private car parks will be more enforceable as you will be legally required to give driver details as you are to councils etc.
So noe overstaying in the services for 15 mins or going shopping a bit to long will mean parking tickets hassle instead of ignoring it.


Parking tickets issued to motorists on private land are presently the responsibility of the driver. Currently the registered keeper can effectively pretend that they were not the driver (when, in fact, in many cases they were) - to avoid proper and legitimate action for breach of contract or trespass. This is unfair and the new Act recognises this by providing for a duty on the keeper to identify the driver when enquiries are made by the landowner or his agent. Failing this, the keeper becomes liable for any parking charges due as a result of the breach of contract or trespass. This will make it easier for parking operators to more effectively manage parking on private land. This ensures universal fairness.

If people are too self inportant to check what time their ticket expires.........

This is a good thing. Clampers have had it too easy for too long.
It was a license to print money and tantamount to extorsion.

So, you have a building yard where you park a few vans and a truck. People just use it as they see fit to pop to the shops etc and when you want to go there to load or whatever there is always a car or two there, on your land.
What do you do to stop them, short of having to fence the whole lot off at huge expense?

[Swanny]

You could share your land and help people out ;)
Maybe put a donation box at the entrance