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PostPosted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 14:33 
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Hi,

I had a very bad experience on the way back from Goodwood this weekend when my car brokedown on the M25. I pulled on to the hard shoulder, hazzards on etc... The HA officer who turned up said I had to have my car off there within two hours, otherwise the police would have to remove it, impound it and fine me. The alternative was to pay the Agency to recover it to a safe location.

I'm with Green Flag through my bank account (not for long after this) who could not get someone to me for three hours. There were night works going on and the two outer lanes were closed, making it extra dangerous.

My questions is this:

Is it a law that a broken down vehicle must be removed from the hard shoulder within 2 hours, or is this at the discretion of the HA and/or police?

I ended up having to agree to pay the HA £135.70 to have one of their agents recover us to a BP garage. Took my Dad and I 15 mins to fix it and get back on our way. Needless to say, I now face recovering the costs from Green Flag. They said I could, but have yet to return my subsiquent calls.

Many thanks in advance,

Duncan.


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PostPosted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 15:22 
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I have never heard of any legal time limit.

What's the betting the HATOs have targets of "number of breakdowns removed within two hours"?

The best thing to do would have been to ask the HATO. And maybe suggest that after 1 hour you'd push the vehicle back onto the road. I'd love to see the reaction to that suggestion. :lol:

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PostPosted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 16:03 
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Well he said that it was the law, but I wonder if that was in the event that the trafic was reduced due to road works, but didn't apply during normal conditions. That said: I can't imagine that its fine for a car to be left there indefinitly, road works or no, and there must be some kind of time limit to deter car dumping.

I dare say that you're right though, I'm sure that they do have a target number of removals. I must say that the HATOs who attended were there very quickly and were very helpful. they spoke to Green Flag for me, told them the score, stayed with us until we had a recovery service booked and then gave us a call after two hours to check that we were ok and on our way out of there.

I'll be miffed if I didn't have to pay for a tow, and could've waited for Green Flag, crap though they are!

I couldn't find any mention of maximum shoulder time online.

D


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PostPosted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 17:06 
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Hi :welcome: chumpey

I have done a little digging and rung them up :
See here : DFT Highways Act 1984 and section 99
Quote:
dft
99.
Removal of vehicles illegally, obstructively or dangerously parked, or abandoned or broken down.
— (1) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision for the removal of vehicles which have been permitted to remain at rest—
(a)
on a road in contravention of any statutory prohibition or restriction, or
(b)
on a road in such a position or in such condition or in such circumstances as to cause obstruction to other persons using the road or as to be likely to cause danger to such persons, or
(c)
on a road, or on any land in the open air, in such a position or in such condition or in such circumstances as to appear, to an authority empowered by the regulations to remove such vehicles, to have been abandoned without lawful authority,
or which have broken down on a road.
(2) Regulations under this section—
(a)
may provide, in the case of a vehicle which may be removed from a road, for the moving of the vehicle from one position on a road to another position on that or another road;
(b)
may provide for repealing byelaws dealing with the same subject-matter as the regulations, and for suspending, while the regulations remain in force, any power of making such byelaws; F1 . . .
(c)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(3) Where it appears to an authority which (apart from this subsection” is empowered to remove a vehicle in pursuance of regulations under this section that the vehicle is on land [F2 other than a road] which is occupied by any person, the authority shall give him notice in the prescribed manner that they propose to remove the vehicle in pursuance of the regulations, and shall not be entitled to remove it if he objects to the proposal in the prescribed manner and within the prescribed period.
[F3 (4) Where in pursuance of regulations under this section an authority proposes to remove a vehicle which appears to the authority to be abandoned and in their opinion is in such a condition that it ought to be destroyed, then “except where they are empowered by the regulations to remove the vehicle from a road in a case falling within paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of subsection (1) above” they shall, not less than the prescribed period before removing it, cause to be affixed to the vehicle a notice stating that they propose to remove it for destruction when that period expires.]
(5) In this section “vehicle” means any vehicle, whether or not it is in a fit state for use on roads, and includes any chassis or body, with or without wheels, appearing to have formed part of such a vehicle, and any load carried by, and anything attached to, such a vehicle.
[ F4 (6) For the purposes of this section, the suspension under section 13A or 49 of this Act of the use of a parking place is a restriction imposed under this Act.


They said that as they are to only 'Manage & maintain' the roads they COULD have towed you but ONLY if you were providing a danger to yourself or to others ...

Anyone else could have towed you off.
You say that you managed to fix 'it' in 15 mins? No chance that you could have 'seen' (or whatever) prior to the expensive removal. As long as you have a reference to your call and a confirmation that they were to be longer than the 2 hrs allocated and they had 'no chance' to put it right - and I certainly would have told them about the costs too ! Then, it sounds like you should be able to recover costs.

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PostPosted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 17:21 
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They are going to get back to me about the '2 hours' as it is not included in the above reference document. They have had to pass to up the chain to a manager.... so I'll pop the response back here when I receive it.
I do see that it states that you *can* object to their removal method ... interesting.

They also stipulate that they only charge a 'recovery charge' and never impound / fine which relates only to legal issues.

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