period eggs!

[JoceAndChris]

Poor Rob, but I'm afraid these sorts of accidents happen to us females. I have cost my husband £170 on accidental damage today - £50 to replace a broken sash pane I had to break to get in the house and £120 on a surprise parking fine. I hope he's in a good mood when he gets home - house lovely and tidy, fillet steak at the ready, wine decanted. 8)

 

[Feltwell]

burned out the starter which i have been replacing this evening , in the rain.

I drove Mrs F's car the other day, first time in a while. "Does the starter always make that horrendous noise?" asked I. "What noise?" was the predictable response.

Joce, if your parking fine is from a local authority then you have to cough up, but if as I suspect at £120 it's from a private parking company then it's practically unenforceable. It's not a fine, as I understand it all rests on contract law. Loads of stuff on t'internet about this.

Mrs F parked on an access road to a National Tyres depot on a Sunday when they were shut - not blocking the road at all, a truck could have driven round her car with ease. She failed to see the small yellow "we're going to try to con you out of £300 if you park here" sign.

The deeply annoying thing is that the DVLA will give these con artists, in exchange for a very small fee, the details of the registered keeper of the vehicle - something which I'm outraged that they are allowed to do, as you have no choice about this when you register your car. We got lots of threatening offical-looking letters and they even sent a partially completed small claims court application form to us (which, from others who I found on the internet who had dealings with this particularly dodgy outfit, they send the same photocopy to everyone!).

Ultimately the onus is on them to prove that you entered into a contract by parking there. In our case at least, if you ignore them for long enough they go away. If they hadn't been so damn greedy to start with and had asked for £30 then we probably would have coughed up, but as they asked for £120 rising to £300 after 7 days I took great satisfaction in beating them at their own game and watching them rack up costs. If they have an "appeal procedure" it is almost certainly a sham by the way. They are a commercial company whose sole interest is extracting money from you.

 

[LadyArowana]

Poor Rob, but I'm afraid these sorts of accidents happen to us females. I have cost my husband £170 on accidental damage today - £50 to replace a broken sash pane I had to break to get in the house and £120 on a surprise parking fine. I hope he's in a good mood when he gets home - house lovely and tidy, fillet steak at the ready, wine decanted. 8)

That doesn't sound like a bad accident, if you have any trouble with Chris I would be happy to explain how it could have been much much worse.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Poor Rob, but I'm afraid these sorts of accidents happen to us females. I have cost my husband £170 on accidental damage today - £50 to replace a broken sash pane I had to break to get in the house and £120 on a surprise parking fine. I hope he's in a good mood when he gets home - house lovely and tidy, fillet steak at the ready, wine decanted. 8)

Hmm - spends thousands on an alarm system and by-passes it by elbowing in a window....! :roll: :wink:

 

[Penners]

Joce, if your parking fine is from a local authority then you have to cough up, but if as I suspect at £120 it's from a private parking company then it's practically unenforceable. It's not a fine, as I understand it all rests on contract law.

That's excellent advice. If the "fine" is being levied by a private organisation, because you infringed some rule relating to parking on their land, then the advice as I understand it is as follows.

Write to them, enclosing perhaps £10 - £20 (depending on how dire you reckon the infringement was) and say that "the payment is offered as reasonable compensation in full and final settlement in respect of your minor breach of contract". Tell them that, if they won't accept it, they'll have to take you to the small claims court.

Bear in mind that I'm not a lawyer, and this advice has simply been gleaned from various articles that I've read, but it's what I would do.

Of course, if it's a local authority fine, then you'll have to abide by the legal procedures governing such matters.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

It's also worth writing to National Tyres or whoever, advising them you won't be a customer of theirs ever, on account of the charlatans they have sub-contracted their parking "management" to.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Thanks for the kind advice everyone. We will do as you say and not pay it I think.

 

[Flyfisher]

Of course, if it's a local authority fine, then you'll have to abide by the legal procedures governing such matters.

Even then, there are procedures to appeal when the fine has been incorrectly applied.

Some years ago I took Westminster Council to the parking Appeals Tribunal for incorrectly ticketing my car on a single yellow line on a Sunday afternoon. I started off naively thinking it was a simple mistake and would be rectified as soon as I wrote them a polite letter pointing out their warden's mistake and enclosing photos and the number of a kind Policeman who couldn't understand the reason for the ticket and was willing to provided a written statement to that effect.

But no. Westminster Council, hereafter referred to as WC for good reason, were as stubborn and bloody-minded as they could be and blindly refused to counter any of the supporting evidence I had supplied, preferring to simply ignore it and hope I would give in and pay up. Eventually, I went to the tribunal and WC didn't even bother to turn up. It took the tribunal lawyer about 5 minutes to declare the ticket to be void, which was about 4mins 58 seconds to read through all the correspondence and 2 seconds to apply his years of legal experience to weigh up the pros and cons of the case before him, before deciding in my favour.

I was furious about the whole affair. All the cars parked along the street in question had been incorrectly ticketed and I suspect many simply paid up within the 14 days before the fine is doubled. There was absolutely zero downside for WC as there is no mechanism for awarding costs in the tribunal. All in all, a complete travesty of natural justice.

OK, it's hardly the crime, or mistake, of the century, but it made me realise that WC (at least) regards parking regulation as a revenue stream rather than a public service. With their wardens being on commission and with no implications for issuing tickets incorrectly, it's obvious how they will tend to behave, yet WC, for one, clearly couldn't care less. It's cynical and it stinks. It also reminded me why I would never consider living there.

Bah!

 

[robgil]

what if it wasnt you who parked the car?
they cant fine the car can they?

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Nice try robgil, but they nail the registered keeper of the car.

 

[Flyfisher]

Is that really the case? Isn't it like speed cameras where the registered owner has to reveal who was driving the car at the time but if they refuse then they are charged with another offence - which still incurs 3 points or whatever, so it's rarely done. But if there are no points for a parking fine, what charge could the private company bring against the registered owner?

I also recall reading about a couple going to court over a speed camera fine. They admitted the offence, as both were in the car at the time, but claimed they couldn't remember who was driving at the time. Something to do with them both being very tired and so swapping the driving duties throughout the journey. I seem to recall that one of them even offered to accept the fine but was overruled in court because it would be an offence to take the blame for something they hadn't done. So, with no proof of who was driving at the time of the offence and the registered owner fully cooperating with police enquiries, the case was dropped.

Could be an urban myth I suppose, but it was a quite a long time ago so I probably read it in a newspaper somewhere - not that they are necessarily any more reliable of course.

 

[Feltwell]

Nice try robgil, but they nail the registered keeper of the car.

No - not for private parking companies. They write to the registered keeper, they threaten the registered keeper with court action - but they are relying on contract law and the "contract" such as it is would be between the driver, not the registered keeper, and the parking company.

That's how we got out of ours - I was the registered keeper of the car but truthfully was not the driver that day. The parking company sent me letters telling me that all I had to do was tell them who the driver was and they would not contact me again, but of course you are under no obligation to tell them anything.

You have to be a little careful if you lie about this as if it did end up in court - which is very unlikely anyay - you would perjure yourself. However the onus is on the parking company to prove who the driver was. When I looked into it though (a couple of years ago) there was no evidence of parking companies actually having won at the small claims court. I was told, rightly or wrongly, that the "contract" would be highly likely to be deemed unfair and the case dismissed if they did try. How can they reasnobly say they incurred £100+ of costs as a result of your parking?

 

[robgil]

so how can they prove it was you? by charging you with guilt!
I have heard about speeding fines being issued and the recipient declaring that they were not driving , when asked who was they said that under European law they were not obliged to say then the case was thrown out of a European court (Belgium i think).

 

[Feltwell]

so how can they prove it was you?

If they've hung around to see you returning to the car and taken a picture I guess - or have a still from CCTV.

The MD of my company is a terribly aggressive driver and habitual speeder (and yes, he does drive a BMW.....) and gets caught by cameras quite regularly. His usual technique is to bribe someone to take the points for him, however the last time he got caught he couldn't find anyone to do this. As the car is registered to the company he replied to the fine notice to say that we had no record of who was driving. He had to sign a document to say that we would keep a record in future, but he got away with it that time - the company had to pay the £60 fine but no one got any points. :roll:

 

[Penners]

Could be an urban myth I suppose

Why are myths always urban?

We go' a foo myths owt hare in the coun'ry, too, y'know.

 

[worms]

Why are myths always urban?

and do only old wives tell tales?

 

[Feltwell]

That's not as big a mystery as "Where does Wonder Woman put her handbag?" though. Or why there is a lighthouse in Northampton.

 

[LadyArowana]

That's not as big a mystery as "Where does Wonder Woman put her handbag?" though.

In her invisible aeroplane! afraid I have no idea about the lighthouse.

 

[Penners]

why there is a lighthouse in Northampton.

It seems obvious to me that the good folk of Northampton have heard about the threat of rising sea levels and have decided to take some steps in anticipation.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

That's not as big a mystery as "Where does Wonder Woman put her handbag?" though. Or why there is a lighthouse in Northampton.

Someone's got a heck of a time lag on their Radio 2 reception. Wasn't the Northampton lighthouse a regular feature of Wogan c.1985?