Good News? Parking Penalties to Reduce?
Discussion
I am sure that the this news https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60282554 will go down well with many. However suspect those that have to manage car parks will be less than impressed as it will increase the cost of enforcement and probably increase the number of chancers
Biggy Stardust said:
Does the BBC know or care that private companies cannot issue fines?
To be fair, it seems the government don't either, and they are just copying the wording:https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-clam...
Chrisgr31 said:
I am sure that the this news https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60282554 will go down well with many. However suspect those that have to manage car parks will be less than impressed as it will increase the cost of enforcement and probably increase the number of chancers
Already a thread here: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...Biggy Stardust said:
Does the BBC know or care that private companies cannot issue fines?
Semantics, really. I don't think saying "they're not real fines" adds to the discussion. It's a private company emulating a fine via a penalty clause. We all know that the private parking "industry" is a bunch of unregulated ex-clampers doing everything they can to make the penalties look like a fine. Does it make a difference what you call it?It is long long overdue that PPC have to abide by stricter regulations on signage etc
I am amazed the Government has allowed them to stick with the status quo of charging 80-100 quid and has effectively slashed it to £25.
I can see in some areas though that its simply cheaper to pay £25 than the real fee. i guess in those case the car park can still sue you for the amount that would be required but would it be worth their while?
I am amazed the Government has allowed them to stick with the status quo of charging 80-100 quid and has effectively slashed it to £25.
I can see in some areas though that its simply cheaper to pay £25 than the real fee. i guess in those case the car park can still sue you for the amount that would be required but would it be worth their while?
Biggy Stardust said:
Does the BBC know or care that private companies cannot issue fines?
The word fine may be inappropriate.When you use a private car park you are entering a legally binding contract with the company, and if you default on your end the company can start a civil action for breach of contract.
Precedent was set in 1996, in the case of Arthur v Anker and again in UK Supreme Court in 2015 with ParkingEye Limited v. Beavis.
https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2013-0...
NMNeil said:
Biggy Stardust said:
Does the BBC know or care that private companies cannot issue fines?
The word fine may be inappropriate.When you use a private car park you are entering a legally binding contract with the company, and if you default on your end the company can start a civil action for breach of contract.
Precedent was set in 1996, in the case of Arthur v Anker and again in UK Supreme Court in 2015 with ParkingEye Limited v. Beavis.
https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2013-0...
The justices in that case essentially bottled it, they could have ruled that if it looks like a fine its and illegal fine but that would have gone against the view commonly held that private companies can fine you. It would have resulted in all the places that want to control parking needing to fit proper infrastructure like barriers or attendants which personally I think would have been a better option
That's just rosy. However 90% of our non-yellow line side roads are now yellowed up with a cash collection device (ticket machine) allowing you to park your taxed car on the side of the road IF you have a valid ticket.
As always its not about the £1 parking ticket.. it's about the £60 fine if caught. Double standards I think.
As always its not about the £1 parking ticket.. it's about the £60 fine if caught. Double standards I think.
Talksteer said:
Very limited precedent, you can still simply claim not to have read the signs.
Honest Guv, I didn't see the sign(s) 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKgAwPdvaz4
Is it still the case in Scotland that you can just fire private parking tickets straight in the bin without any legal consequence, because the 'registered keeper' has no specific/automatic liability?
edit: Looks like they closed this little loophole in 2019, was good while it lasted.
edit: Looks like they closed this little loophole in 2019, was good while it lasted.
Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 7th February 22:42
I don't mind the rules being tightened with regards to signage, appeals, process, and so on, but there absolutely does need to be a financial deterrent for people parking where they shouldn't, or parking without paying the appropriate fee.
My family owns a small car park which was eventually handed over to be managed by a 'parking eye' type company, and you simply would not believe the number of chancers who almost see it as almost a human right to be able to park somewhere without paying, or overstay by hours and not have to pay for that time.
I have no doubt that parking companies have behaved badly for years, sending people erroneous letters, or sending someone a charge notice because they were too close to a white line or whatever, but legislation in recent years has more or less stopped all that sort of thing.
But do not underestimate the belligerent 'try to get something for nothing' attitude of the British public, which has resulted in these parking companies being a necessity.
My family owns a small car park which was eventually handed over to be managed by a 'parking eye' type company, and you simply would not believe the number of chancers who almost see it as almost a human right to be able to park somewhere without paying, or overstay by hours and not have to pay for that time.
I have no doubt that parking companies have behaved badly for years, sending people erroneous letters, or sending someone a charge notice because they were too close to a white line or whatever, but legislation in recent years has more or less stopped all that sort of thing.
But do not underestimate the belligerent 'try to get something for nothing' attitude of the British public, which has resulted in these parking companies being a necessity.
spikyone said:
Semantics, really. I don't think saying "they're not real fines" adds to the discussion. It's a private company emulating a fine via a penalty clause. We all know that the private parking "industry" is a bunch of unregulated ex-clampers doing everything they can to make the penalties look like a fine. Does it make a difference what you call it?
It does. Parking Eye are currently chasing me over a penalty notice. I've explained to them on seven separate occasions that it wasn't my car but they are "denying my appeal".They use terminology to suggest that they have some form of legal power over Joe Public and use of words such as "fine" reinforces that idea. I've suggested that they take me to court but they're just sending increasingly threatening letters & demanding ever higher "enforcement costs".
They need bringing down a couple of pegs.
Biggy Stardust said:
It does. Parking Eye are currently chasing me over a penalty notice. I've explained to them on seven separate occasions that it wasn't my car but they are "denying my appeal".
They use terminology to suggest that they have some form of legal power over Joe Public and use of words such as "fine" reinforces that idea. I've suggested that they take me to court but they're just sending increasingly threatening letters & demanding ever higher "enforcement costs".
They need bringing down a couple of pegs.
So what? Private parking charges have the exact same effect (financial penalty) and implications (potential for court etc) as a fine, so what difference does it make what they're called?They use terminology to suggest that they have some form of legal power over Joe Public and use of words such as "fine" reinforces that idea. I've suggested that they take me to court but they're just sending increasingly threatening letters & demanding ever higher "enforcement costs".
They need bringing down a couple of pegs.
In your case if it's not your car, you could've gone through POPLA and had it killed off rather than waste your time corresponding with them. Parking Eye could take you to court, and they have taken people to court in the past - all the way to the Supreme Court, in Barry Beavis' case.
Lord Marylebone said:
My family owns a small car park which was eventually handed over to be managed by a 'parking eye' type company, and you simply would not believe the number of chancers who almost see it as almost a human right to be able to park somewhere without paying, or overstay by hours and not have to pay for that time.
I have no doubt that parking companies have behaved badly for years, sending people erroneous letters, or sending someone a charge notice because they were too close to a white line or whatever, but legislation in recent years has more or less stopped all that sort of thing.
Two things. Legislation has done nothing to stem the tide of erroneous letters being sent out. People still get charges for visiting a shop twice in one day, or being in a queue for a car wash: https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/drivers-issued-park...I have no doubt that parking companies have behaved badly for years, sending people erroneous letters, or sending someone a charge notice because they were too close to a white line or whatever, but legislation in recent years has more or less stopped all that sort of thing.
This goes back to what was said earlier about making the business model unviable - parking companies prove again and again that they'll happily find new, unscrupulous ways to make up for any shortfall. It's a never-ending con that desperately needs stamping out
Second thing, what did your parents do to manage parking themselves? Did they install barriers? Employ an attendant? Or did they just do nothing other than hiring some goons? Yes, people shouldn't take the piss (though it's no guarantee people were doing it intentionally or through not giving a toss). But in the same way as you have a lock on your front door and Tesco employ security guards, prevention is infinitely better than sending out a parking charge two weeks after any inconvenience has been caused. Installing measures to prevent overstays etc. is part of the cost of operating a car park.
spikyone said:
<snip>
Second thing, what did your parents do to manage parking themselves? Did they install barriers? Employ an attendant? Or did they just do nothing other than hiring some goons? Yes, people shouldn't take the piss (though it's no guarantee people were doing it intentionally or through not giving a toss). But in the same way as you have a lock on your front door and Tesco employ security guards, prevention is infinitely better than sending out a parking charge two weeks after any inconvenience has been caused. Installing measures to prevent overstays etc. is part of the cost of operating a car park.
You seem to be victim blaming.Second thing, what did your parents do to manage parking themselves? Did they install barriers? Employ an attendant? Or did they just do nothing other than hiring some goons? Yes, people shouldn't take the piss (though it's no guarantee people were doing it intentionally or through not giving a toss). But in the same way as you have a lock on your front door and Tesco employ security guards, prevention is infinitely better than sending out a parking charge two weeks after any inconvenience has been caused. Installing measures to prevent overstays etc. is part of the cost of operating a car park.
It was a small patch of land in a city centre, which my parents purchased primarily to use as a staff car park for their business which was located about 100 yards away. It was used to park their 2 delivery vans which would come and go throughout the day, a few staff cars, and the rest of the spaces were rented out to people who worked nearby. It had 11 spaces. 6 were used by the business and 5 rented out on a long term permit basis.
It had very clear signage stating it was private land, no entry, and not a public car park of any kind. There was no ticket machine or anything else that would suggest it was a public car park.
The clear signage did nothing to deter random strangers who would use it day in, day out, for 'popping to the shops' and just dumping their car there. There was even one bloke who owned a shop nearby who decided he was going to use it as his personal car park almost every single day, we ended up in court with him after a long battle to try to stop him parking there.
There were two other 'regulars' who would arrive there every night at about 6pm as their girlfriends lived in nearby apartments, and they would park every single night from about 6pm to 8am, before leaving for work. We actually offered them permits to park at nights, and they just laughed at the idea, as clearly they could get it for free.
People would use it a lot in the evenings as somewhere to park while collecting takeaways or going on a night out.
It does not stack up financially for a small office car park with 11 spaces to have an attendant or thousands of pounds worth of electric gates installed (I have no idea where the electric supply would come from for gates). Besides, one of the businesses which backed onto the car park had 'vehicle access rights' over the land so installing barriers was not a realistic option as we would have to have given them all fobs/cards etc.
We installed a chain and padlock across the entrance, but it lasted a couple of weeks before 'going missing'. We tried with pull-up lockable bollards in the spaces, but that just meant that illicit parkers simply dumped their cars in the centre of the car park, causing even more havoc.
We tried verbally challenging the parkers on countless occasions over the years, and pretty much the stock response was "f
k off. What you gonna do about it?"Credit where credit is due, the parking 'goons' (as you call them) sorted the problem right out within days. The two evening parkers staying in nearby apartments got clobbered with letters each for the parking enforcement, and then sheepishly phoned up to ask to buy the permit they were offered months ago.
The daytime 'popping to the shops' types almost completely stopped, and the long term moron from a nearby business tried to front it out with the parking company (claiming the usual stuff about their threatening letters being worthless) and then mysteriously decided to never park there again, after the company decided to make an example out of him on purpose.
I would love to know what you would have done to resolve the situation without employing a parking management company.
Edited by anonymous-user on Tuesday 8th February 16:10
Lord Marylebone said:
You seem to be victim blaming.
It was a small patch of land in a city centre, which my parents purchased primarily to use as a staff car park for their business which was located about 100 yards away. It was used to park their 2 delivery vans which would come and go throughout the day, a few staff cars, and the rest of the spaces were rented out to people who worked nearby. It had 11 spaces. 6 were used by the business and 5 rented out on a long term permit basis.
It had very clear signage stating it was private land, no entry, and not a public car park of any kind. There was no ticket machine or anything else that would suggest it was a public car park.
The clear signage did nothing to deter random strangers who would use it day in, day out, for 'popping to the shops' and just dumping their car there. There was even one bloke who owned a shop nearby who decided he was going to use it as his personal car park almost every single day, we ended up in court with him after a long battle to try to stop him parking there.
There were two other 'regulars' who would arrive there every night at about 6pm as their girlfriends lived in nearby apartments, and they would park every single night from about 6pm to 8am, before leaving for work. We actually offered them permits to park at nights, and they just laughed at the idea, as clearly they could get it for free.
People would use it a lot in the evenings as somewhere to park while collecting takeaways or going on a night out.
It does not stack up financially for a small office car park with 11 spaces to have an attendant or thousands of pounds worth of electric gates installed (I have no idea where the electric supply would come from for gates). Besides, one of the businesses which backed onto the car park had 'vehicle access rights' over the land so installing barriers was not a realistic option as we would have to have given them all fobs/cards etc.
We installed a chain and padlock across the entrance, but it lasted a couple of weeks before 'going missing'. We tried with pull-up lockable bollards in the spaces, but that just meant that illicit parkers simply dumped their cars in the centre of the car park, causing even more havoc.
We tried verbally challenging the parkers on countless occasions over the years, and pretty much the stock response was "fk off. What you gonna do about it?"
Credit where credit is due, the parking 'goons' (as you call them) sorted the problem right out within days. The two evening parkers staying in nearby apartments got clobbered with letters each for the parking enforcement, and then sheepishly phoned up to ask to buy the permit they were offered months ago.
The daytime 'popping to the shops' types almost completely stopped, and the long term moron from a nearby business tried to front it out with the parking company (claiming the usual stuff about their threatening letters being worthless) and then mysteriously decided to never park there again, after the company decided to make an example out of him on purpose.
I would love to know what you would have done to resolve the situation without employing a parking management company.
I'm in a similar situation. Everything you said rings bells.It was a small patch of land in a city centre, which my parents purchased primarily to use as a staff car park for their business which was located about 100 yards away. It was used to park their 2 delivery vans which would come and go throughout the day, a few staff cars, and the rest of the spaces were rented out to people who worked nearby. It had 11 spaces. 6 were used by the business and 5 rented out on a long term permit basis.
It had very clear signage stating it was private land, no entry, and not a public car park of any kind. There was no ticket machine or anything else that would suggest it was a public car park.
The clear signage did nothing to deter random strangers who would use it day in, day out, for 'popping to the shops' and just dumping their car there. There was even one bloke who owned a shop nearby who decided he was going to use it as his personal car park almost every single day, we ended up in court with him after a long battle to try to stop him parking there.
There were two other 'regulars' who would arrive there every night at about 6pm as their girlfriends lived in nearby apartments, and they would park every single night from about 6pm to 8am, before leaving for work. We actually offered them permits to park at nights, and they just laughed at the idea, as clearly they could get it for free.
People would use it a lot in the evenings as somewhere to park while collecting takeaways or going on a night out.
It does not stack up financially for a small office car park with 11 spaces to have an attendant or thousands of pounds worth of electric gates installed (I have no idea where the electric supply would come from for gates). Besides, one of the businesses which backed onto the car park had 'vehicle access rights' over the land so installing barriers was not a realistic option as we would have to have given them all fobs/cards etc.
We installed a chain and padlock across the entrance, but it lasted a couple of weeks before 'going missing'. We tried with pull-up lockable bollards in the spaces, but that just meant that illicit parkers simply dumped their cars in the centre of the car park, causing even more havoc.
We tried verbally challenging the parkers on countless occasions over the years, and pretty much the stock response was "f
k off. What you gonna do about it?"Credit where credit is due, the parking 'goons' (as you call them) sorted the problem right out within days. The two evening parkers staying in nearby apartments got clobbered with letters each for the parking enforcement, and then sheepishly phoned up to ask to buy the permit they were offered months ago.
The daytime 'popping to the shops' types almost completely stopped, and the long term moron from a nearby business tried to front it out with the parking company (claiming the usual stuff about their threatening letters being worthless) and then mysteriously decided to never park there again, after the company decided to make an example out of him on purpose.
I would love to know what you would have done to resolve the situation without employing a parking management company.
Edited by Lord Marylebone on Tuesday 8th February 16:10
Some people just lose any shred of decency when it comes to parking their car.
Lord Marylebone said:
You seem to be victim blaming.
It was a small patch of land in a city centre, which my parents purchased primarily to use as a staff car park for their business which was located about 100 yards away. It was used to park their 2 delivery vans which would come and go throughout the day, a few staff cars, and the rest of the spaces were rented out to people who worked nearby. It had 11 spaces. 6 were used by the business and 5 rented out on a long term permit basis.
<snip>
I would love to know what you would have done to resolve the situation without employing a parking management company.
Victim blaming? Victims of what, exactly, other than being too lazy/cheapskate to protect their land? They were happy to take income from renting spaces and offering permits, but not happy to use part of that income on ensuring it was secure. It's hard to be sympathetic towards that attitude.It was a small patch of land in a city centre, which my parents purchased primarily to use as a staff car park for their business which was located about 100 yards away. It was used to park their 2 delivery vans which would come and go throughout the day, a few staff cars, and the rest of the spaces were rented out to people who worked nearby. It had 11 spaces. 6 were used by the business and 5 rented out on a long term permit basis.
<snip>
I would love to know what you would have done to resolve the situation without employing a parking management company.
Edited by Lord Marylebone on Tuesday 8th February 16:10
Did their business have a lock on the door? An alarm system? If their car park was so important, why didn't they do something to ensure it was secure too?
I'm not condoning those who abused the site. But some people will do bad things and we all take actions, every single day, to protect ourselves. Frankly, there are worse things people can do than use a car park without permission; at worst it's inconvenient and annoying.
What would I do to resolve the situation? Install a barrier. Job done.
spikyone said:
Victim blaming? Victims of what, exactly, other than being too lazy/cheapskate to protect their land? They were happy to take income from renting spaces and offering permits, but not happy to use part of that income on ensuring it was secure. It's hard to be sympathetic towards that attitude.
Did their business have a lock on the door? An alarm system? If their car park was so important, why didn't they do something to ensure it was secure too?
I'm not condoning those who abused the site. But some people will do bad things and we all take actions, every single day, to protect ourselves. Frankly, there are worse things people can do than use a car park without permission; at worst it's inconvenient and annoying.
What would I do to resolve the situation? Install a barrier. Job done.
Why should they have to take measures against freeloaders? Why can't people not act like sDid their business have a lock on the door? An alarm system? If their car park was so important, why didn't they do something to ensure it was secure too?
I'm not condoning those who abused the site. But some people will do bad things and we all take actions, every single day, to protect ourselves. Frankly, there are worse things people can do than use a car park without permission; at worst it's inconvenient and annoying.
What would I do to resolve the situation? Install a barrier. Job done.
ts? You do seem to be supporting the scrotey side of the debate rather than those doing no harm to others.Thanks for the POPLA suggestion, btw- can't think why it hadn't occurred to me.
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