How councils raked in £376m – as parking fines soared by 8% NEW YEAR BOOST FOR THOSE FINED AT TRAIN STATIONS
PA R KI NG fines are a ‘multi-million-pound business’ for councils and priv a t e c o mpanies – b u t research shows motorists are being denied mercy over honest mistakes. This is despite the new Parking Bill making its way through Parliament which seeks to crack down on poor practice among private parking operators and make it easier for motorists to challenge unfair fines.
Thousands of people are being fined up to £100 a time and that is even despite making an effort to follow the rules.
Private parking tickets are being handed out at a rate of once every five seconds. Meanwhile, local councils in England – which issue millions of fines a year – have seen an eight per cent surge in revenue from penalty charge notices alone.
This has bumped penalty revenue up to £376 million in the financial year to the end of March 2018, according to analysis by the RAC Foundation. In previous years annual rises for council- issued parking fines were around three per cent.
S t e v e Go o d i n g , director of the RAC Foundation, says: ‘When totted up, counci l parking i ncome amounts to a multi-million-pound business.’
Tickets issued by councils are known as penalty charge notices. Though private parking companies often use the ‘PCN’ letters to confuse customers into thinking it is an official council fine, their tickets are not penalty charge notices.
More than half of people who appeal against a council- issued fine win their case using the Traffic Penalty Tribunal (England and Wales). But only a tiny percentage – fewer than 0.5 per cent – bother to challenge fines.
One motorist in a rush to get to his dying father was fined by the local authority for parking for a couple of minutes too l ong next to a dropped kerb. The council rejected an appeal, but he was successful when the case was referred to the Tribunal. The unnamed motorist says: ‘Sometimes parking regulations are not broken wilfully or through ignorance, but for a pressing reason. That was recognised in my case.’
NO LENIENCY FOR GENUINE ERRORS
DRIVERS are increasingly being pounced upon by overzealous parking operators or traffic wardens for minor lapses in judgment – or even for failing to get to grips with new technology.
On private land this includes drivers using the wrong digit when keying a vehicle registration number into a parking ticket machine.
Many car parks now use automatic number plate recognition to monitor cars coming into a car park. But i f a customer punches in a zero instead of the letter ‘ O’ on the ticket machine, the technology is not sophisticated enough to notice the error. The customer is assumed to have parked without paying, triggering a fine.
When a customer objects to a penalty on the grounds of having made a ‘ keying error’, operators are refusing to cancel the fine.
‘Honest mistakes’ has been the theme of parking fine disputes over the last year according to appeals body Popla – Parking on Private Land Appeals. John Gallagher, lead adjudicator, says: ‘At the start of the year, car park operators were asked to t ake a more l enient approach towards motorists who had parked and paid. The focus was meant to be managing parking, not mistake punishment.’
Yet Popla is still handling many cases of this nature. It has received just over 67,000 appeals this year from motorists. Of the 65,644 cases dealt with, two fifths of the fines were cancelled.
Gallagher’s advice to people who contest parking tickets is to deliver a persuasive argument. He says: ‘Motorists can help themselves by supplying as much information and detail as possible – it gives a better chance of success.
‘We consider mitigating circum- stances. If someone needed extra time to go to the toilet that is probably not going to result in a successful appeal.
‘But if someone’s car would not start and they could supply proof from a breakdown service, for example, that is different.’
Motorists disputing a t i cket should not immediately settle as paid- up fi nes cannot be challenged.
Appeal first to the parking company, and prepare to be knocked back – in which case it should provide a ten-digit verification code. This can be used to lodge an appeal with Popla. Visit popla. co. uk or write to Popla, PO Box 1270, Warrington WA4 9RL.
If a council rejects an appeal, use an independent party such as the Traffic Penalty Tribunal in England and Wales (trafficpenaltytribunal. gov.uk), or London Tribunals for fines issued in the capital (londontribunals.gov.uk).
There is also the Northern Ireland Traffic Penalty Tribunal (justiceni.gov.uk/articles/northern-irelandtraffic-penalty-tribunal) and the Parking and Bus Lane Tribunal for Scotland ( mygov. scot/ parkingappeals/how-to-appeal).