Fined £260 for parking in a parents' space and leaving kids in the car

Rachel Bailey-Everest mother of three children accused a private parking firm of having 'no humanity' after she was fined £260 for parking in a parents' space and leaving her kids in the car.

Ms Bailey-Everest had used the special parking bay twice within the space four days to use a nearby shop.

She was shocked when she received the fines which were because she left her three children in the car instead of taking them with her to the store on both occasions. She tried to appeal against the fines but was told that she had failed to comply with the parking terms.

Rachel, from Cringleford, Norfolk, said: 'I feel so annoyed. It's just an easy way of making money out of people.

The first ticket was at the East of England Co-op in Norwich, Norfolk on August 24. 'I just saw a parents' space and parked there. I thought that will do, my boy's not well and I need to get in and get home. Her little boy was not very well at the time and he had fallen asleep in the car. She decided to leave three-year-old Benjamin with older sisters Sofia, aged 10, and Amalia, aged seven, while she popped into the shop

Rachel added: 'I thought the space was close to the store so one of the girls could come and see me if they needed to. I think I was in the store for about eight minutes.'

The second ticket was on August 28, using the same space and leaving her three children in the vehicle for around 11 minutes.

A few days later, the stay-at-home mum said she received a parking charge notice (PCN) from National Parking Enforcement (NPE), which manages the car park. It told her she had to pay a fine of £100.

Shortly afterwards, she received another PCN, but did not check the dates on the letters and assumed they were both for the same incident. She appealed against the fine, but it was turned down.

Rachel then received another letter saying she had not paid the second fine, and was being charged an extra £60 for debt recovery agents' fees - totalling £160.

She said: 'I didn't even know it was against the rules to leave your kids in the car in a parents' parking space.

Rachel went back and read the small print on the sign and it did say you've got to be accompanied out of the vehicle by a child under the age of 12. which she admits she didn't see.

Source  dailymail 

Grieving daughter furious after council issue parking ticket on dead mum's car and refused to drop it

A grieving daughter was left "crying her eyes out" after a council refused to drop a parking ticket it had given to her dead mum - forcing her to fight it.

The woman, who did not want to be named, told the Hull Daily Mail : “My mum deteriorated quite rapidly, and had not really been able to go anywhere since last May.

“She was sedated on January 14, and she did not speak again until she died on the 16th.

“A few days later, my sister was at mum’s house to pick up some boxes to take to the tip, and found the parking fine on her car.”

The woman immediately rang East Riding of Yorkshire Council, and spoke to the customer services team. She praised them for the support they gave, and they asked her to bring her mum’s death certificate into their office as proof.

The woman’s sister took the certificate in, and it was passed on to the council’s parking department.
The 42-year-old spoke of her shock, however, when they came back and said they were upholding the fine.

“When I found out we still had to appeal against the fine, despite everything that has happened, I could have cried my eyes.”

A spokesman for the council said: "In light of this information the parking ticket has now been cancelled and we will be writing to this lady with confirmation."

Crackdown on illegal parking as council take control

For years drivers in North Somerset have parked illegally without the fear of finding a parking ticket. However the council has now taken over enforcement of double yellow lines and disabled bays from the police.

 

The council is hoping a clampdown on the streets of the streets of Weston-super-Mare, Clevedon and Portishead will free up spaces for people who genuinely need them.

One wheelchair user said, "sometimes when you go into places like supermarkets, and people have parked in there, if you do go and tackle them, they can be quite abusive."

The wardens here have spent the last two weeks handing out over a thousand (blue) warning notices to people that have been parked illegally.

If the equivalent number of £70 fines were to have been given out, it could have netted up to £70,000 for the council.

 

Allan Taylor, Parking Services Manager for North Somerset Council, said "Invariably, we will be giving out more fines but I think very quickly the public will change their behaviour."

"Very shortly we will have places available for loading bays, for lorry drivers, for people to unload, disabled bays for disabled people and no parking where it could be dangerous or hold up traffic."

In the first few hours of the new enforcement rules, the team has issued 50 £70 fines. The council says it's a small price to pay for keeping these roads clear.

 

Driver wakes up to £110 parking ticket after council paint disabled bay AROUND his car overnight

Image: SWNS.com

When Matt Armstrong found his car parked in a disabled bay outside his home, he assumed he was the victim of an elaborate prank - because it wasn't there the night before.

Matt had parked his car lawfully on the road outside his south London home before bed, so was stunned to find Lambeth Council had painted the bay around his Renault Clio overnight.

Matt failed to see the funny side as he had been slapped with a whopping £110 fine due to the car being parked illegally.

The bay had been requested for Matt's neighbours husband more than two years previously — unfortunately he died earlier this year and she had called Lambeth council several times to cancel.

He said: "They put in this disabled bay which no one needs, painted it under my back wheels and then gave me a parking ticket.

"What can I do but pay the fine and hope to repeal it. If you don’t pay you get clamped or towed away"

Lambeth council confirmed Mr Armstrong’s fine had been cancelled after the authority was contacted by the Evening Standard.

A spokeswoman said: "We’ll cancel the fixed penalty notice and are investigating why there was some confusion around the marking of the disabled bays."

 For the fuller story and more images please visit mirror.co.uk

Smart owner wins council battle over Smart sideways parking fine

The owner of a Smart car was fined £50 over a year ago for parking at a right angle to the kerb after a traffic warden insisted the car overlapped the bay markings.

The penalty has finally been overturned after the driver Vanessa Price, fiercely contested her case, claiming the parking maneuver was recommended by the Smart car's manufacturer.

An adjudicator at a parking penalty tribunal ruled no traffic regulation order had been breached, adding that while drivers have to park within marked bays in pay-and-display and permit-controlled zones, it is not enforceable in limited waiting spaces where Mrs Price had left her car.

The business owner told the Daily Mail: "I have parked like this in Stroud, London and Bristol and never had any trouble before. If you go to the Smart website they show you pictures of their cars parked in this way."

The legal battle between Mrs Price and the council lasted a year. A full refund was eventually issued. "It was a ridiculous process and there were no winners in the end," she added.

The law stipulates that at least one wheel needs to be wholly outside the markings of a bay for a fine to be issued except in the cases where a long vehicle overhang is causing an obstruction or preventing another vehicle from parking in an adjacent bay.

The Smart car, which gets its name from the Swatch Mercedes ART cooperative venture, measures around 2.7 metres in length and was introduced in the UK in 2000. The latest model will go on sale in early 2015.

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