Safe Speed Forums

Yeah, they'll probably give the accused a photo of the offence. Like the speeding camera partnerships give you a photo of your offence of speeding, after a fight.

Park van, come back with ticket (first machine suffering from chewing gum plague) find parking ticket on screen. "sorry, 5 minute period over"
No problem, next 5 customers get charged 6 quid more.

Well what I meant was, you couched it in a way that started with the assumption that those things were true and then asked me if I saw anything wrong with it.

But anyway, I agree that there instances of over-zealous enforcement of parking restrictions in extra-ordinary circumstances where, for the sake of compassion or humanity if nothing else, the 'offence' should be overlooked. Unfortunately the individuals who carry out this job are probably not selected for their ability to make decisions for themselves and when these cases occur it is their employer who should be made to carry the can for their lack of discretion.

This however is the nub of the issue.....



Agree 100% Barkstar. We like to think of ourselves and our fellow citizens as being fair minded, sensible and considerate, but there are times when we act like a bunch of complete jerks!

Telford Town Centre started charging for parking some 3 or 4 years ago and this immediately displaced cars that would have used the town centre car parks into the surrounding area. One spot that people found to park up was outside a local church, in its small carpark and in the access road alongside; no thought was given to the needs of funeral corteges and wedding parties etc who used the church during the week. The result was heavy coffins having to be maneouvred through the narrow gaps people had left between their parked cars.
Finally, a parish worker was verbally abused by the owner of one of these cars when she caught him placing a flyer behind her windscreen wiper politely setting out details of the problem they were causing the church and asking them to park elsewhere. As often happens in such cases where people have no sense of shame or humility and in a pathetic attempt to gain the moral highground she accused him of scratching her car has he'd leaned over to lift the windscreen wiper

So, if we all acted a bit more altruistically we wouldn't need all these damned rules and restrictions in the first place. And lets be clear about this, its not the presence of these rules that makes us act like spoiled kids its definately the other way around.

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Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

The one I've seen the photo is on the first NIP they send, along with the time you were there.

I have no problem with paying to park, but I object to private armies of "enforcement officers" actually fraudulently issuing tickets to satisfy the greed of their shareholders.

These new regulations will simply serve to browbeat more innocent motorists, into paying fines they should not be paying.

Our local council in Kendal has finally implemented pay on exit parking - 7 years after I called for it. My wife had parked her car, walked to the ticket machine with our young sons in tow, paid and walked back, and found a ticket on the screen!
Now the new machines are in place, you can park, and extract young children safely, then ensure you have change to pay before you return to your car. Common sense AT LAST! But how many motorists paid fines like my wife for something they had not done wrong?

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

She paid the fine?!?!

No way I would've paid in that situation.

It's cheaper to pay the fine than it is to fight it.
You cannot drag two young children around council offices trying to get some jobsworth to see that somebody THEY employed screwed up.
They take the view that they are infallible.

We have a car park in Bowness, which has a short section of double yellow lines left behind from when the exit/entrances were a road.
A disabled woman on her way to a funeral in a church close by parked on the lines... and despite her disabled badge, got a ticket.
She wrote pointing out that she had a badge - but they said it was NOT valid in the car park, and she should have parked on the double yellows OUTSIDE the carpark!!
They admitted she was not causing an obstruction, but rules were rules!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Uh? A simple challenge of the inital NIP is often enough to get it rescinded in cases like this. Takes about 20 minutes.

When they ticket a car and get it wrong they should pay the car owner for the time it takes to sort it out time is money.

It is worth fighting the councils.
They will lie and bully you into paying but you have to ignore what they say and concentrate on the law.

A lot (most?) of people who challenge a PCN end up not paying.
If you do it right you can take them to court for wasted time, or something similar. I know someone who got a PCN on Poole Quay. I don't remember if it was for parking a motorbike next to a rail for, err, chaining bikes to, or if it was for one of the badly marked disablised bays.
I also don't know how much he got, but it was an out of court settlement he was happy with.

Have a look on the parking tickets forum at PePiPoo, there's a lot of people who challenge and win. The councils are absolutely hopeless.

I have never understood how charging just to be somewhere can be right. Especially if it's the council doing it who have already been paid council tax to look after the car parks.

But they know that people will need to be there for as long as they need no matter if it is tolled or not.

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Andrew.

My boss parked his car in a street in London, crossed the road, and bought a ticket from the machine. When he got back to the car an hour or so later he had a parking ticket. It turned out that the machine he bought the ticket from was in a different borough to the one where the car was parked, even though it was only on the opposite side of the road. He might as well have not paid at all - it would have saved the several pounds that went into the wrong machine.

I suspect that a lot more of this sort of thing will happen under the new rules.

I agree, but not if you deserved teh ticket because then you're just wasting other people's money.

I think it's time for the councils to extract money from cyclists. They should only allow "parking" of cycles in provided areas, and charge for the priviledge of same.
Same rules apply.
No responsibility
Couldn't give a s**t

Illegally parked cycles should be chained to a large, thisk, steel post and a fee charged to "unclamp" them.

All cyclists should be required to remove their head protection when going into shops.

If there is anything whatsoever that is defective about the PCN or the council's case then you have every right, legally and morally, to challenge the ticket.

Some people seem to think that technicalities should only be used against drivers and not in their favour. I can only imagine that they think that because they're in favour of motorists being persecuted.

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Paul Smith: a legend.

"The freedom provided by the motor vehicle is not universally applauded, however: there are those who resent the loss of state control over individual choice that the car represents. Such people rarely admit their prejudices openly; instead, they make false or exaggerated claims about the adverse effects of road transport in order to justify calls for higher taxation or restrictions on mobility." (Conservative Way Forward: Stop The War Against Drivers)

Cycles are already often removed from street furniture.



If they were wearing full face helmets they would have to remove them wouldn't they?

If you "deserve" the ticket then it would be for dangerous or obstructive parking. This can be dealt with without any of the councils interfering, and without any ugly lines or signs.

If you look even just at the diagrams for the lines & signs you might be surprised how many of the restrictions have been drawn incorrectly and are therefore unenforceable!

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Andrew.

We're back in lazy and selfish territory I fear. When it comes to town centres if they didn't charge all the spaces would be filled by 8:59am and empty by 17:31pm. A lot of town centre parking is cheap(ish) for a couple of hours but very expensive for all day to deter workers filling them up on a permanent basis.

Which isn't to say I don't think the Councils don't stiff us, or the private car park owners come to that. Late last year I parked in an underground car park in London's China Town. The display of fees was only visible once you'd got to the in barrier and by then backing out isn't an option. We knew it wouldn't be cheap - it's London - but for 4.5 hrs on a Sunday afternoon? £22.50

If I can I take public transport or walk. Oh and I have access to a petrol powered cutter

Barkstar

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The difference between intelligence and stupidity is that intelligence has limits.

Or is that what they want us to think?
Who allowed the planning permission for offices without enough car parking spaces? Oh yes, the council.

Anyway, charging just means that the poor can't afford to be there. The rich would be unaffected.

Toll car parks get filled up sometimes. So what is everyone there paying extra for...?

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Andrew.

I think you'll find that councils not only question the minimum parking spaces for planning permission, but also the maximum (and cycle space as well).
In fact, large areas of housing are being built with little, or no, provision for car parking as a design feature.
Milton Keynes couldn't be built by todays standards, too much carparking and too much ready access for cars to housing areas !

I have seen some planning permission documents which show that they are causing problems.

The funniest (and I'll admit that I only read what was on the lamp post and this doesn't always bear any resemblance to the actual planning permission document) was for a conversion of a listed building into two one bedroom flats each with one 'cycle parking space'.
So that's for somebody who has no friends then?

The other one I saw in more detail as I objected to it. To paraphrase the decision from 'transportation services', "this will cause a parking problem. Include a couple of 'cycle parking spaces' and we'll allow it.".

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Andrew.

Nice one Ernest, I just did a similar thing with the DVLA reminder scam, I'm £11 pounds up already by a SORN, but just wait 'till next year! £81.....in my hands, not in theirs! Bastards!..............(sorry) and I'm now looking for an Insurer who will provide on a monthly basis (not during winter)...............