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."

Councils make £819m from parking charges

A study done by the RAC has suggested that English councils generated £819m from parking fees and fines in 2016-17, an increase of 10% on the previous year.

This figure represents income from parking charges and penalty notices with running costs deducted.

The Local Government Association said parking charge surpluses were spent on "essential transport projects".

Income collected by the 353 English local authorities was up 6% and costs rose 2% compared with 2015-16, when the surplus was £744m.

RAC Foundation director Steve Gooding said the rise in profits reflects the "record number of cars and volume of traffic".

Martin Tett, the Local Government Association's transport spokesman, said parking charges keep the roads clear, help pedestrians, motorists and cyclists safe and enable people to park near their homes.

They also go towards tackling the UK's £12bn roads repair backlog, he added.

An annual report from the Asphalt Industry Alliance this year found that almost a fifth of roads in England and Wales were in "poor" condition.

Top 10 councils in England with the largest parking operations surplus:

1. Westminster £73.2m
2. Kensington and Chelsea £32.1m
3. Camden £26.8 m
4. Hammersmith and Fulham £23.1m
5. Brighton and Hove £21.2m
6. Wandsworth £20.5m
7. Islington £19.1 m
8. Haringey £14.6m
9. Hackney £14.5m
10. Hounslow £12.0m

Source: the RAC Foundation 

Fore more detailed analysis please visit here

Dyslexic driver fined after mixing up a zero with the letter O in car-parking app

A dyslexic man has been locked in a battle over a parking fine for £100 after mixing up a zero with an O.

Mr Nick Preedy said he had been parking in the spot in Nottingham for several months and using an app to pay when he was suddenly hit with a fine, despite having forked out the £8.20 for 12 hours of parking.

Nick said he had tried to appeal the fine he was slapped with last year by Excel Parking – but was surprised to be hit with a summons to the Small Claims Court over the matter.

He told The Sun Online: “I’d been using this app for well over a year with the same registration registered when I got a ticket.

“I said, I’m not paying, I’ve got proof, and carried on pestering them, and emailed them the proof of the parking ticket.”

The car had been registered under the parking app with an O, rather than a zero.
Nick added: “I didn’t hear anything back then the other day I received a letter saying I’ve got to go to court over it.”

The saga has been going on since January last year.

He said: “It’s been bad enough getting letters at the beginning, with them saying ‘we want the money’.

“It’s like being threatened and bullied.”

Speaking to the Sun Online, he said: “For me, it wasn’t as if I didn’t pay, I hadn’t of been thinking that I couldn’t afford it and that I would try to sneak in real quick, which people do.

“My partner said I should just pay it but I’ve already paid for the parking, I’m not paying for the ticket.

“I’ve tried talking to them, all they want is the money.”

A spokesman for Excel parking said Mr Preedy had to opportunity to appeal to the fine twice before the matter was handed to debt recovery.

They said: “Furthermore, he could have also contacted the Debt Recovery Agent who we engaged to handle matters prior to it being referred to our current ‘Agent. It was at this point, Mr Preedy made contact although no reference was made to his dyslexia.

“Inevitably, we have incurred additional costs in getting to where we are now and the matter could have been addressed much sooner had Mr Preedy contacted us early last year.

“However, as a gesture of goodwill, we will contact Mr Preedy with details of a settlement figure we are prepared to accept without the matter proceeding to court.”

But Mr Preedy said he was now willing to go to court over the matter, despite the offer on the table to have a one hour mediation to discuss a settlement cost.

He said: “It’s the principle of the thing.

“I’m not sitting there for an hour listening to them argue about money. If the court says I have to pay it, I will.”

A spokesman for Excel parking added: “We would always advise motorists to contact the parking operator as soon as possible if they consider they have genuine grounds to challenge a PCN, or have special mitigating circumstances they wish to be considered.

“Often motorists are misguided on bad advice given on some websites and take no action at all in the hope that the matter goes away.”

Source: The Sun

Chatbot lawyer overturns 160,000 parking tickets in London and New York

Free service DoNotPay helped appeal over $4m in parking fines in just 21 months,  19-year-old Joshua Browder built the bot after receiving “countless” parking tickets himself.

An artificial-intelligence lawyer chatbot has successfully contested 160,000 parking tickets across London and New York for free, showing that chatbots can actually be useful.

Dubbed as “the world’s first robot lawyer” by its creator, Joshua Browder a London-born second-year Stanford University student , DoNotPay helps users contest parking tickets in an easy to use chat-like interface.

The program first works out whether an appeal is possible through a series of simple questions, such as were there clearly visible parking signs, and then guides users through the appeals process.

The results speak for themselves. In the 21 months since the free service was launched in London and New York, Browder says DoNotPay has taken on 250,000 cases and won 160,000, giving it a success rate of 64%

“I think the people getting parking tickets are the most vulnerable in society. These people aren’t looking to break the law. I think they’re being exploited as a revenue source by the local government,” Browder told Venture Beat.

Browder intends to expand DoNotPay to Seattle next. He also intends to create a service to help people with flight delay compensation, as well as helping the HIV positive understand their rights and acting as a guide for refugees navigating foreign legal systems.

Student got parking ticket after pulling over to help elderly lady lying on pavement

Image Credit Daily Echo

Drew Hollinshead from Winton was given a parking ticket as he rushed to help an old lady who had fallen over.

The 21 year old student, was driving along Wimborne Road when he noticed an elderly lady lying on the pavement in nearby Wycliffe Road and swiftly pulled over to try and help.

After getting the lady back on her feet, he returned to his car where he found a Bournemouth Council parking warden issuing a £70 fine for stopping in a disabled parking bay without a permit.

 "I went back to my car and there was a parking officer who was giving me a ticket. He must have seen what was happening and that I was helping the old lady.

"I asked him why he was still giving me the ticket and he said: 'It gives me no great satisfaction to give you this ticket'.

"Any normal person would have turned a blind eye when they saw why I had stopped as I just got out, helped this old lady to get up and went back to my car."

Drew said that he ripped the ticket up half in the heat of the moment and threw it in the bin, but later went to fetch it to show Daily Echo.

"It says that it costs £70 if paid within 28 days of the date that it was issued or £35 if paid early, within 14 days, but it's not the cost that matters, it's the principle of it. I tried to do something good and then something bad happened because of it. I stopped in the disabled bay as it was the nearest place to where the old lady was. There was space for about four cars and it was completely empty, so it wasn't like somebody was waiting to use it and I was blocking the space. Under the circumstances, I think it's ridiculous."

A spokesperson for Bournemouth Council originally told the Daily Echo that they are not able to comment on individual cases and would not give any more details.

However after the story appeared in the Echo on Monday, the council issued this statement: "Bournemouth Borough Council strongly disputes Mr Hollinshead version of events following an incident in Wycliffe Road after which the parking attendant was left distressed and shaken up.  Mr Hollinshead of course reserves the right to appeal.

"The parking ticket was issued because Mr Hollinshead’s vehicle was not displaying a valid disabled badge or clock. The notice had been printed when Mr Hollinshead returned to his vehicle.  A written log made by our Parking Attendant immediately following the incident states that Mr Hollinshead had claimed he had been in the parking bay for between 30 and 40 seconds even though the issuing of a parking ticket takes around five minutes to complete."

"Our attendant’s statement also notes that Mr Hollinshead approached the attendant several times after the ticket was issued and used very aggressive and abusive language in a personal attack directly on the warden. The attendant’s log also states that Mr Hollinshead physically threatened and assaulted the member of staff, advising him that he would “have an accident” and records that Mr Hollinshead pushed our staff member towards the road"

"The log states that the attendant then alerted nearby police resulting in a PCSO warning Mr Hollinshead about his abusive language and supporting our staff member in his actions.  Mr Hollinshead then left the scene."

"The attendant’s log records a third approach by Mr Hollinshead, during which he stated he was parking in the disabled bay because he had gone to the aid of an elderly lady and that he was only gone for two minutes.

"The attendant has recorded that he then pointed out that it takes five minutes to issue a PCN. This was the first time it is recorded that Mr Hollinshead raised the issue of assisting another person and the incident with the elderly person was not witnessed by the traffic attendant.

"The log concludes that Mr Hollinshead then drove off whilst on the phone."
Margaret Leslie, Operations Manager for Parking Services, said: "Any motorist receiving a fine can appeal against a ticket through the contact details given on their Penalty Charge Notice. We give full consideration into all individual cases and take mitigating circumstances into account."

Source

Traffic warden in trouble after ticketing wheelie bin

A traffic warden with a sense of humour is being investigated after issuing a wheelie bin with a parking ticket.

The traffic warden slap one of the dreaded yellow notices on a Biffa wheelie bin that had been left 'parked' on double yellow lines in Carmarthen in south west Wales.

Onlooker Mike Jones recounted the event to the BBC: "It was bizarre - I realised I had just watched a warden give a ticket to a wheelie bin for bad parking."

Carmarthenshire council acknowledged the whole thing was a joke, explaining there was no actual penalty charge notice inside the waterproof plastic packet, but said it would be investigating.

Counctil traffic and safety manager John McEvoy said in an interview with the BBC: "There was no ticket issued, it is not possible to book a wheelie bin or anything that is not motorised."

"Although this was meant as a humorous incident, we take this kind of thing very seriously and have launched a formal investigation into the conduct of this officer," he added.

It is unclear who was responsible for illegally parking the bin or who the parking attendant is.

 Source