Parking cowboys buy details of 12 vehicles a minute

PRIVATE parking firms are buying the details of 12 vehicles every minute to pursue owners over fines.

Official figures reveal the firms – many of which have been labelled ‘cowboys’ for catching out drivers with rogue practices – are harvesting record levels of information from the DVLA. Between October and December last year, private firms bought 1,576,593 vehicle keeper records from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency at £2.50 each – a rise of 26 per cent on the same period in 2016.

The data is used to chase owners over tickets issued at shopping centres, supermarkets, hospitals, pubs and restaurants that can top £100 each.

Evidence of the booming trade in driver data comes after the Government committed to back a Bill by Tory MP Sir Greg Knight which aims to crack down on rogue parking firms.

Sir Greg told the Mail: ‘My Bill will put the carpark cowboys out of business by introducing a statutory code of practice which will oblige any one who runs a private car park to operate in a fair and reasonable way.’

Companies that flout the code will be barred from buying information from the DVLA – effectively putting them out of business.

Last night the RAC Foundation said ticketing on private land has reached ‘epidemic proportions’ as the DVLA’s figures suggest it is selling the details of 17,317 drivers a day, or 12 every minute.

By far the most prolific of the private firms is Parking Eye, owned by outsourcing firm Capita, which bought 533,251 vehicle records between October and December last year.

Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said: ‘The fact that ticketing has reached such epidemic proportions demonstrates exactly why legislation is needed.’

Andrew Pester, chief executive of the British Parking Association, said it backed Sir Greg’s bill but added: ‘Our membership already complies with a robust code of practice which has been continuously improved for over ten years.’