RE: Wheel clamping: RIP
Discussion
And so the rest of the British Isles catches up with Scotland. BTW I am pretty sure PCNs for McDonalds are unenforceable. I got an unfriendly letter from Stansted McDonalds, looked it up online and discovered there is no legal force to their charge. Laugh is that I bought the car in the restaurant so different owners drove it in and out.
Gixer said:
What a load of tosh
I've been clamped in London twice. Just like a previous poster, I paid and displayed, returned a few hours later to find a fine issued and then 20 mins later a clamp too. There was one residents only bay in a street of at east 30 bays. On both occasions the 'sign' if you can call it that was well hidden and the bays were not correctly marked. On one occasion I nearly got the clamp off. I managed to get the wheel off but they had put the chain through the wishbone, something I've since been told they're not supposed to do. Whilst doing this, residents and black cab drivers were stopping by to offer help/encouragement and many said it was a regular occurrence - clamping cars that thought they were legal.
On another occasion I received a PCN at Mc D's at Gatwick. I was there but only a few mins. Lucky for me my car has a company tracker which put my firmly on the A23 at Brighton when the alleged offence took place. WIN
I've been clamped in London twice. Just like a previous poster, I paid and displayed, returned a few hours later to find a fine issued and then 20 mins later a clamp too. There was one residents only bay in a street of at east 30 bays. On both occasions the 'sign' if you can call it that was well hidden and the bays were not correctly marked. On one occasion I nearly got the clamp off. I managed to get the wheel off but they had put the chain through the wishbone, something I've since been told they're not supposed to do. Whilst doing this, residents and black cab drivers were stopping by to offer help/encouragement and many said it was a regular occurrence - clamping cars that thought they were legal.
On another occasion I received a PCN at Mc D's at Gatwick. I was there but only a few mins. Lucky for me my car has a company tracker which put my firmly on the A23 at Brighton when the alleged offence took place. WIN
Wait... So you return to your car to find it has had a fine issued, but rather than drive away you decide to f
k off for a bit instead and come back later? That sounds like you're practically begging to get clamped. Have you never been to a town before?
Shock horror there are random residents only/disabled bays on seemingly residential streets. Somebody call the President!
Just because a speed limit sign is obscured behind tree doesnt mean that the speed limit no longer applies. Same as just because a speed camera is hidden doesnt mean the penalty is void. Why is it different if its parking instructions?
I have never been clamped. I never pay for parking. Strange how i've never been victimised by those evil b
ds, I must just have better eyesight then the majority of people on PH. 
blank said:
There must be a little more to this story.
You are allowed to stop on normal double yellows for loading and/or collecting/dropping passengers.
It's right. There are CCTV camera cars that drive around, and if the camera picks up a vehicle stopped in one of their designated routes, then the operator back at the office reviews it, and then they send off a fine.You are allowed to stop on normal double yellows for loading and/or collecting/dropping passengers.
MASSIVE bone of contention. My other half got done by one, I successfully appealed it. All sorts of stories of people reversing off their drive onto the road, shutting the gates and driving off, oh by there way here's a PCN.
CCTV was an option meant for routes where it is dangerous for a traffic warden to safely walk. Fair enough.
Councils now just drive around everywhere and blanket fine people. Probably very profitable for those too scared to fight it.
MarJay said:
I got clamped in Aldi car park in Reading. I wasn't visiting Aldi which is why I got clamped. However, the thing that boiled my proverbial more than anything was that the release fee was £125 payable immediately!
Even the penalty for parking illegally on Chiswick High road is only £75 FFS!!!
Could you not perform an about turn, walk into Aldi and buy something? Or does the thought of being seen with an Aldi carrier bag fill you with dread? Seriously, the most obvious thing to do would be to say you'd forgotten something in your car and then gone into Aldi and legitimized your use of their car park. Even the penalty for parking illegally on Chiswick High road is only £75 FFS!!!
Gorbyrev said:
And so the rest of the British Isles catches up with Scotland. BTW I am pretty sure PCNs for McDonalds are unenforceable. I got an unfriendly letter from Stansted McDonalds, looked it up online and discovered there is no legal force to their charge. Laugh is that I bought the car in the restaurant so different owners drove it in and out.
Yeah, silly fines are essentially not enforceable. This is why the letters have to be so aggressive, because they have no other method of making you pay. If you choose not to pay, then they will have to take you to court to get any money. And that is going to take them lots of time and money, and they may not get it. Therefore, will they bother?
http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/law_e/law_le...
Plus, there is every likelihood that even with a court ruling, then you do not pay. I am not recommending this, but a legal victory does not mean someone will pay, and any debt collector will understand this.
I'd also like to say I'm in favor of fining cars which are stupidly and illegally parked.
I just think clamping is a ridiculous and outdated concept. You don't need to detain a perfectly legal and working vehicle just because the owner has made a mistake. Issuing a fine to the driver is more than enough. The rest is completely last century.
I do concede that on the rare occasion, cars have to be forcefully removed. But that scenario shouldn't even be included in the discussion.
I just think clamping is a ridiculous and outdated concept. You don't need to detain a perfectly legal and working vehicle just because the owner has made a mistake. Issuing a fine to the driver is more than enough. The rest is completely last century.
I do concede that on the rare occasion, cars have to be forcefully removed. But that scenario shouldn't even be included in the discussion.
MarJay said:
I got clamped in Aldi car park in Reading. I wasn't visiting Aldi which is why I got clamped.
So why park there? I put it to you that you knew you were taking the piss and you thought that you would not get caught?What happens when they don't enforce, is that all the local workers take the spaces, leaving none for the customers....
It's good news but there does need to be some level of enforcement. My parents have a house that is converted into 3 flats with 3 parking spaces on the drive. It happens to be close to town in a tourist location and people are forever parking on the drive (unbelievably) so the tenants have no space for themselves. They tried a sign with no luck then put a gate on the drive with a padlock which was cut off overnight with an angle grinder three times. They ended up bringing a civil case against the most prolific offender (a guy who lived opposite) and then hired a clamping firm to check once per day which finally solved the problem.
I'm in Scotland so the lie of the land is slightly different and I was subject to a private parking company operating on MY land! They harassed me for parking on my secure parking area (secure - i.e. not accessible to the public as it was gated) and claimed they were appointed by the property factor (who in my opinion had entered into an arrangement with the parking company in question) who were operating on my behalf without my permission and who refused to tell the private parking company to get the hell off my land, I had to get lawyers involved etc and they eventually went away though they left their sign-age up. They only went away properly when the company went under and sold their interests to another company who were thankfully told where they could go by residents and factor alike (but only after they tried to issue penalty invoices to many residents for parking on our own property - and scarily I believe these criminals still have the keys to access my secure parking). Thankfully we now have more legal powers over Factors who were previously able to simply use their size and dubious contractual clauses to rip off property owners throughout Scotland - they were deemed unable to regulate themselves by Parliament as they were too corrupt and I simply don't see how a bunch of cowboy clampers / ticketers have been deemed able to self regulate...
I know it's been said many times on this thread but the 'fines' issued are penalty invoices for which legal precedent exists which renders them void at best. At most you may owe a fair sum for loss of earnings etc for taking space on the land - i.e. a similar charge to a nearby car park but be assured you do now EVER pay the penalty invoices issued by these companies, nor believe the false letters written from fictitious affiliated debt collectors or similarly fictitious lawyers etc etc... Please raise a formal complaint with the DVLA and the relevant government department for releasing your details which have then been used to violate the 1997 protection from harassment act not to mention the data protection act etc etc... The DVlA claim the £3 they make from selling your details covers costs but afaik freedom of information requests have shown this to be a dubious claim.
I believe the company who harassed me folded because they had a large number of CCJ's lodged against them as a result of losing cases brought by their victims which they never had any intention of honouring - so there's little point in taking these criminals (ticketers - obviously England now has similar laws to Scotland in respect of clamping which up here constitutes vehicle theft) to court etc as the law is incapable of dealing with them so you just have to ignore them and be confident that they are acting unlawfully.
I hope we see further regulation and a realisation that the practice of policing and administrating legitimate parking charges on private land requires proper legal regulation and that simply allowing self regulation by a tongue in cheek industry body set up by a dubious industry to avoid proper regulation and appease some politicians - the BPA - is not sufficient.
I'll leave it there but as you can see I suffered enough harassment (and the potential of a £20K legal bill just to get these people off my property - and I did consider employing security as a cheaper option) to warrant the above rant and my case contributed to the Property Factors Scotland Bill as a result of my legal wrangling which went through the Scottish parliament recently (after my MSP got involved directly with my Factor and wrote to the parking company etc on my behalf - and was largely ignored by both parties).
For further information I strongly advise reading more information on www.moneysavingexpert.comhttp://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.p...
I know it's been said many times on this thread but the 'fines' issued are penalty invoices for which legal precedent exists which renders them void at best. At most you may owe a fair sum for loss of earnings etc for taking space on the land - i.e. a similar charge to a nearby car park but be assured you do now EVER pay the penalty invoices issued by these companies, nor believe the false letters written from fictitious affiliated debt collectors or similarly fictitious lawyers etc etc... Please raise a formal complaint with the DVLA and the relevant government department for releasing your details which have then been used to violate the 1997 protection from harassment act not to mention the data protection act etc etc... The DVlA claim the £3 they make from selling your details covers costs but afaik freedom of information requests have shown this to be a dubious claim.
I believe the company who harassed me folded because they had a large number of CCJ's lodged against them as a result of losing cases brought by their victims which they never had any intention of honouring - so there's little point in taking these criminals (ticketers - obviously England now has similar laws to Scotland in respect of clamping which up here constitutes vehicle theft) to court etc as the law is incapable of dealing with them so you just have to ignore them and be confident that they are acting unlawfully.
I hope we see further regulation and a realisation that the practice of policing and administrating legitimate parking charges on private land requires proper legal regulation and that simply allowing self regulation by a tongue in cheek industry body set up by a dubious industry to avoid proper regulation and appease some politicians - the BPA - is not sufficient.
I'll leave it there but as you can see I suffered enough harassment (and the potential of a £20K legal bill just to get these people off my property - and I did consider employing security as a cheaper option) to warrant the above rant and my case contributed to the Property Factors Scotland Bill as a result of my legal wrangling which went through the Scottish parliament recently (after my MSP got involved directly with my Factor and wrote to the parking company etc on my behalf - and was largely ignored by both parties).
For further information I strongly advise reading more information on www.moneysavingexpert.comhttp://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.p...
The problem with the clamping industry was that it was not properly governed and they should have had a standard fine structure UK wide not £50 here and £250 there.
We have the parking problem at work as we are by a school, all the mums think it is their right to park in our spaces while they take their children into schiool and then do 1/2 hour of shopping, I have to travel between 60 and 90 mins a day and I have to pay for my space of the owners of the office block i do not want to wait to park my car!!!!!
Drivers do have an issue with parking correctly in this country.
ps behind KFC in nepALDERSHOT, double yellow and the council have installed a camera up high and sending parking tickets to cars parked or stopped on the double yellow, a friend stopped to pick up wife and was fined. be warned.
We have the parking problem at work as we are by a school, all the mums think it is their right to park in our spaces while they take their children into schiool and then do 1/2 hour of shopping, I have to travel between 60 and 90 mins a day and I have to pay for my space of the owners of the office block i do not want to wait to park my car!!!!!
Drivers do have an issue with parking correctly in this country.
ps behind KFC in nepALDERSHOT, double yellow and the council have installed a camera up high and sending parking tickets to cars parked or stopped on the double yellow, a friend stopped to pick up wife and was fined. be warned.
I can see why in a way it's bad thing for certain businesses and areas of residential parking! I'm interested how it will affect me though when it next comes to parking in a motorway services overnight! It's always wound me up that by abiding by the law and having to park in a motorway services overnight when my time is up, I get charged approx 20-25 quid for the privilege, or face the clambers! Do I now stop paying, and ignore the parking "invoice" when it drops through the door ?
Really? people are posting photos and noone has posted this video?
As said, in London they would play silly games randomly clamping things that they had no right to and then demand large amounts of cash to release them, normally picking on vunerable targets whilst they were mob handed. A *few bad ones ruined what would be a good service for places that actually need to be able to clamp.
As said, in London they would play silly games randomly clamping things that they had no right to and then demand large amounts of cash to release them, normally picking on vunerable targets whilst they were mob handed. A *few bad ones ruined what would be a good service for places that actually need to be able to clamp.
- quite a bit more than a few.
blueST said:
I believe they can now chase the registered keeper, rather than just drivers, for fines. This means the old advice to just chuck private parking fines in the bin is no longer valid, as the registered keeper will be liable if the driver cant be identified.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19782680
Yes.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19782680
Absolutely bloody outrageous.
hwajones said:
I agree, this was the wrong solution...
We manage a large portfolio of commercial property which is nigh on impossible to operate effectively without having clear service yard and access points.
The legislation should have dictated the need for a proper licence to operate and proof of an actually obstruction!
I am in the same boat managing a commercial portfolio. It's bad enough trying to manage parking for our tenants who are entitled, and pay, to park on our properties, now lord knows. I wish most people thinking this is great news knew just how much hassle, time, and money is spent managing car parks for those people with rights to use them.We manage a large portfolio of commercial property which is nigh on impossible to operate effectively without having clear service yard and access points.
The legislation should have dictated the need for a proper licence to operate and proof of an actually obstruction!
The shame of it is, we wouldn't need any enforcement if people just acted reasonably and didn't park where they know they shouldn't.
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