DVLA - terrible at data management

Mr Mustard made a Freedom of Information request to DVLA. He did this because a lady, let us call her Jayne, purchased a used car, and posted in the V5C with her complete and accurate address. Mr Mustard has a copy of what was sent to DVLA. Somehow her car got registered to a non-existent address in Mansfield, a town she has no connection with and has never visited.

Let us suppose the motorist lived at 4 Shakespeare Court, 111 Woodville Road, Barnet EN5 4LX (Mr Mustard's former address by way of illustration as he can't use the actual one for Jayne).

Using the Royal Mail postcode checker we can see the following:

Mr Mustard surmises that because the flats had a block name which precedes the street number, blocks don't come up when you search using the DVLA's method. Staff also can't be expected to know every location. There are 1.3 million postcodes and goodness knows how many blocks of flats.

Searching by road name alone brings up the correct address as the fifth choice. An under strain or slapdash DVLA employee might select the wrong one.

It is only by inputting the complete postcode, a maximum of 8 digits, that you can be sure of getting the correct locale.

The system that the DVLA are employing is more likely to end up in error with their partial matching method, which looks to have a huge flaw within in.

Mr Mustard is going to ask a follow up question to test his hypothesis.

In Jayne's case, she correctly wrote on the form an address in London N2, which is a flat in a block which block has a street number. Somehow, perhaps because of the name of the block, her car was registered in Mansfield.

What is worse is that it was registered at an address which doesn't even exist. Using a different address as an example. If the physical address used was 12 Regina Court, West End Lane the postcode used was for 12 Regina Court Lane which did exist but still wasn't Jayne's address and gave the postman a delivery problem.

The first she knew of the PCNs was when the bailiff knocked on her actual front door and demanded £2,000 at the risk of having her car removed and so she paid up even though she had received nothing at all in the post. It has taken Mr Mustard 3 months to ascertain the cause of the problem, which is one he hadn't ever seen before. He much prefers to keep PCNs out of the hands of bailiffs. It isn't clear that the bailiff had a valid warrant as it may have still had the out of date (and obviously invalid) Mansfield address on it. That is a blog for another day.

Some of you might have noticed that you had purchased a car but not received the 'logbook' from DVLA a month later, others wouldn't. As you don't need it unless you travel abroad or decide to sell your vehicle Mr Mustard thinks the non arrival is an entirely understandable oversight. If you buy a used car, make a note for a month later to chase up the missing registration document ('logbook').

Having watched much of the Post Office Horizon Inquiry Mr Mustard is no longer shocked by the incompetence at high levels in large organisations but DVLA's data processing disaster method is of the same ilk. He has seen complaints on the internet in which a resident complains that an unknown person has registered a vehicle at their address. The suspected rogue clearly isn't always a scam artist but could be the DVLA.

The end, for now.

Baywatch

A motorist has come to me who parked here and missed the low level sign which was behind a tree and received a PCN for parking in a permit bay without a permit.

I looked at Barnet Council's photos and here is the showreel.

A traffic warden (CEO) is meant to check that signs and lines are adequate before issuing a PCN. This one clearly didn't as there aren't clear lines, faded lines or even lines at all. The answer here is that the CEO should have reported the missing lines & not given a driver a problem, an undeserved PCN. Mr Mustard will lodge a complaint about them. You should do the same if this happens to you.

The end.

Newham Council - not staffed by Knights of the Road

This story concerns a road near the Tate and Lyle factory, not all that far from the Thames Barrier.  It is a rather industrial area sandwiched between the river and docks.

It could do with a weekly wash.

The sign that was there in 2020 was nowhere to be seen two years later. Local workers will naturally and legally take advantage of free parking. It seems that signs at this location disappear or are vandalised quite often. The council's solution is to put new signs up, send a traffic warden or two down there straightaway, issue PCNs and then tow en masse. Naughty, as they should wait a day before enforcing, but an adjudicator had their measure.

This is Mr Goring's only entry in the PCN Appeal register so we can be fairly sure he is a victim not a sign stealer.

Mr Mustard doesn't know why he read this particular decision on 22 August but he did and it piqued his interest so he sent Newham Council some questions.

Very sensibly, the response was provided by way of a table which Mr Mustard has rearranged into PCN time order.

Look at that efficiency, 6 PCNs issued in 12 minutes. One traffic warden could do that but more likely there were 2 or 3. Removals also at pace. There must have been two lorries as there were removals 4 and 5 minutes apart.

The second PCN is that of Mr Goring. Two other people made representations but then didn't fight the rejection at the tribunal. If they had, they might have got their money back. 

Four motorists didn't even bother to try and challenge their PCNs. If all seven had gone to the tribunal three or four at least would have won. There was no risk of having to pay further monies. If you are towed you pay the 50% in order to release your vehicle, which freezes the PCN and you also pay £200 for the tow. If ever you are towed you must make representations as they are a free throw of the dice (unless you are monumentally stupid or selfish and parked on a zebra crossing).

Assuming everyone recovered their vehicles on the same day, so didn't pay £40 for overnight storage, Newham Council raked in £265 * 6 = £1,590

This is what parking has become. An immoral machine for sucking money out of the wallets and purses of innocent people. We need an independent external body to police the behaviour of councils and contractors and to force them to behave in a proper manner.

This ridiculous logo was on the bottom of the council's letter:

Best start building Newham Council as you are patently and obviously unfair.

The end.

Redbridge Council - don't pay 15p to park for free

 

Parking meters have been bagged over since January. One would think that removing them would be quicker than this.

The lack of a quick and easy way for drivers to obtain proof that they are within the free hour led a Mr Conlan to the tribunal. Well done, sir.

You don't have to give RingGo anything to pay nothing at all. Go into settings on the App and turn off optional SMS reminders or anything else that they charge for. The session has a countdown clock if you click through to it.

Redbridge Council have compounded their incompetence by not amending the signs. A sign which incorrectly advises you might be found to be a procedural impropriety by an independent adjudicator. The council have had 8 months to change the signs and should have planned for them in advance.

There is further hopelessness as the council plan (although not very well) to bring in the ability to use PayPoint in certain local shops but a driver wouldn't know that if he/she isn't informed by signage. It would of course be necessary to leave your vehicle in order to pay by that method, which the council will then criticise you for.

Redbridge make a bundle out of issuing PCNs to people during the 'free' hour.

The end.

Rentals - councils suspicious of overseas renters

It stands to reason that some of the drivers who rent a car in the UK will be from a different land. Mr Mustard himself rented cars last year in Canada for work as of course he couldn't take his car with him.

Here is how it ended up at the PCN tribunal when Harrow Council (it could have been any enforcement authority) refused to accept a perfectly proper request for transfer:

 

The 2 month rule had never featured in any of Mr Mustard's cases but the council would not be any better off in enforcing even if they knew the address as the person would no longer be there by the time a bailiff was instructed (if the PCN was not paid) or if it was a hotel there would be nothing to distrain on.

The situation is the same if the car in question was registered overseas as that is outside the remit of the bailiff (an England & Wales court authorised bailiff can't even enforce in Scotland).

This case is symptomatic of the distrust with which the public is often viewed by council parking departments.

The end.

Barnet Council : double not quits

 

Always something new for Mr Mustard to deal with. These from a motorist who luckily sent him both Notices.

 

Mr Mustard asked a few question of the council on Sunday 8 September, as follows, and the council answers are there, a reasonably swift response.

Someone beat Mr Mustard to the draw on the Friday 6 September.

This isn't the first local authority to double print a batch of documents. On would hope they tell each other, at least within London, of problems and more importantly, solutions, but Mr Mustard thinks this can't be happening, or if it is, it doesn't work well enough.

It is no surprise that the council didn't want to cancel all 690 PCNs as they would not then rake in tens of thousands of revenue. 690 PCNs at £130 would be £89,700 (but budget for say a 50% recovery).

Another PCN expert gave Mr Mustard his opinion, which which Mr Mustard concurs:

There is no statutory power to serve the second NTO, a second NTO can only be served on another person and only in limited circumstances (such as where a previous NTO is cancelled by the county court, the tribunal or the authority itself). There are no circumstances where the council can randomly issue a second NTO on the same person while a previous NTO issued to that person is still outstanding.

Unfortunately there is no body, apart from the council itself, that a member of the public can go to to suggest a different outcome. It is a failing in the system that councils are trusted to self police. The only outcomes they appear to be interested in are positive cash flow ones.

The end.

Barnet Council 56 day error

 

Mr Mustard recognised the name Michael Strom and when he searched the register he found 13 Appeals of which Mr Strom had only lost one. Chapeau. It therefore didn't surprise Mr Mustard that Mr Strom knew the law better than Barnet Council do.

The council always manage to count 28 days when that leads to the next step they can take to move a PCN along but have not programmed their computer to prevent themselves from breaking the law. The law, for parking PCNs, says that a formal representation, one made in response to the Notice to Owner, is automatically cancelled if the council have not served a response within 56 days of the date of receipt of the representations.

The lack of an external overseer for PCNs is becoming more critical by the day. There is no sanction for this council failure although Mr Strom might be able to claim costs for vexatious or wholly unreasonable behaviour but the costs bar is a high hurdle as costs are rarely awarded by law.

The end.

Persistence pays - all councils, not just Haringey

Mr Mustard was contacted by a motorist who put the health and safety of his father before petty parking considerations. The bay was a pure Event Day one. If the motorist has described the facts in a good manner there is no need for Mr Mustard to rewrite them. On 1 June he made the informal challenge (the one in response to a PCN placed on your car or put in your hand):

 It was 5 July before the challenge was rejected. Here it is:

Mr Mustard expects that you find it hard to believe that there is any real sympathy otherwise the PCN would have been cancelled. The (un)Fitness for Work note confirmed that the patient was not fit for work, suffered seizures and had been referred to hospital for tests. How much more sick do you have to be to get Haringey to exercise their discretion?

Mr Mustard advised the motorist not to pay at the 'bribe' rate of 50% as he was fairly confident that he could beat the PCN on the basis of inadequate signage. Councils offer this discount even when they don't have to (it was required in this case as the challenge was within 14 days of the PCN) as they know that motorists worry about it and that the vast majority of motorists do not have sufficient determination to see things through and may mistakenly think they cannot re-use a challenge which has been rejected. They can and they should for consistency.

On 24 July the Notice to Owner arrived.

Mr Mustard made representations against it, known as formal representations as they are the ones described in statute, and the heading apart, they repeated the earlier challenge and were made on 26 July:

 This time, the same challenge met the opposite outcome, acceptance.

This was done by a different council staff member.

Mr Mustard finds Haringey Council now accept most of his challenges either because there has been a change of management or someone has analysed all of Mr Mustard's cases and discovered that he almost never loses against them.

What the public should learn from this experience is that if you want to get a PCN cancelled, and you have a half decent argument, is that you have to see the fight through. You might also have to start an Appeal at the independent  Environment and Traffic Adjudicators. Decide at the beginning, pay or fight. If the idea is to fight don't be put off by the first council rejection, it is all about the money.

The end.

Havering 0 - Rundle 7 (10)

 

You need to be like Mr Rundle. He will stand up for his rights.

Looking only at the seven recent PCNs which are all related we can see that Havering have the same problem as Redbridge, defaced signs, and behind the shops is the sort of place where that is more likely to occur.

Mr Rundle was potentially on the hook for £420. Given his importance to the health of society isn't it the case that a council should be trying to help him, not penalise him?

The independent adjudicator, who is not affected by the thought of the huge income for the council, made her decisions, of which one is repeated in full here:

The local authority accept that the signs are so bad that they cannot take a photograph which can be read and therefore the motorist is not on notice. It is of no assistance to them that Mr Rundle may have known what the restriction was on a particular date as it could easily have changed the next day and as they were overlooking their legal duty to erect and maintain signs.

When Havering refer to previous cancellations not setting 'precedence' they do of course mean that they do not set a precedent. However, if on occasion one the sign is spray painted and on day two it is still spray painted then the same outcome will apply regardless as due notice has not been given of the restriction.

This adjudication decision is bang on the money.

Instead of harassing this first responder Havering Council should be looking to see what they can do to help him.

The end.

Merton Council - making it up

 

The restriction probably starts at the junction meeting point, where the give way markings are. Thus Mr Mustard would probably have argued that the signs were not adequate due to placement. The motorist had his own ideas and picked up a sign point which Mr Mustard might have missed, the authorised vehicles point, but not the school term times which he is well aware is improper.

The adjudicator gave careful consideration to the Appeals, far more than Merton Council would have done, as the adjudicator is completely impartial and Merton Council were trying to stiff a motorist for £780

These decisions, as are the hearings, are public which is how Mr Mustard can bring them to you. He often looks at multiple penalty cases.

 

If the same flaws are in your case at a different location or in a different council area you can claim the support of these decisions but they are not precedents. Other adjudicators make up their own minds but may be persuaded by the view of another adjudicator.

Don't just pay PCNs, see if you can find something wrong, you will be amazed if you look hard enough how often councils get it wrong.

The end.

Redbridge - Cranbrook Road - PHVs not exempt on red route (black cabs are exempt)

 

The vast majority of Appeals by PHV drivers at this location have been accepted. They only occur of course once the motorist has made representations to Redbridge Council and been rejected, even though the council know that the small percentage of people who Appeal to the tribunal are likely to win. The council don't want anything to get in the way of revenue raising, certainly not fairness.

It is quite rare for red routes in London to be under the control of any authority apart from TfL. This has left PHV drivers in a difficult situation, they don't know when the passenger wants to be dropped on a red route whether or not they will receive a PCN for it.

If you are calling a minicab and are adjacent to a red route please help the driver by going 25m down a side road, where the red route has ended and calling from there.

The original Appeal was lost. It shouldn't have been as the Traffic Order was not in evidence and there doesn't need to be a consideration of exemptions until the enforcement authority has proved its case.

More Review requests are turned down than accepted for a hearing and more of the second hearings are lost than allowed but in this the Chief Adjudicator carried out the Review. He picked up the lack of reasoning and thus this request looks like it came under the 'Interests of Justice' ground.

Having asked Redbridge Council to produce the Traffic Order and not been sent it, it is no surprise that the PCN was cancelled accordingly by the Chief Adjudicator.

If you take a mini-cab in Redbridge please ask your driver to spread the word around his driving mates.

The end (although Cranbrook Road is likely to appear again in the blog).

Hell's Belz in Hackney

The double kerb marks are more prominent now

Mr & Mrs Smith (not their real name) have a young child who goes to nursery in Belz Terrace on Clapton Common. Civil enforcement officers ('traffic wardens') seem to target Belz Terrace at nursery drop off times. Thus it was that a few months ago Mr Smith was driving the family car, registered to Mrs Smith, and during the nursery drop off a PCN was issued. This is fair enough, that a PCN is issued, as it takes a few minutes to walk your child to the nursery, go in and formally hand them over to a member of staff and sign the register, and the traffic warden doesn't know where you are. All they see is a car on double yellows. Perhaps parents should have a small laminated card including the nursery logo to put in the windscreen which says 'Boarding or alighting' just as delivery drivers sometimes have ones that say 'loading'.

What you do expect, or hope for, is that Hackney Council will, when presented with relevant evidence, cancel the PCN without ado if shown adequate evidence.

Mr Mustard challenged the PCN during the 14 day discount period although he wasn't fretting about discount, he would have taken the PCN all the way to the tribunal.

The online representation system didn't offer boarding and alighting but did offer loading and unloading so Mr Mustard chose that as the nearest option and pointed out the lack of choice.

He kept the challenge simple 'The x year old child Jim Smith was being alighted to the Adjacent Nursey. This is an exemption. Please cancel the PCN.' The nursery contract was attached.

Ten days later a rejection was received. The substance follows:

There was nothing careful about Hackney's consideration. No mitigation was advanced so there was none to consider so clearly this was a template response and the council diddn't consider the evidence even though that is their exact duty. A representation isn't a comment, which would be something like 'ooh, that blue dress suits you' which clearly he didn't write. Councils are easily satisfied in their own favour.

At this point he decided to step outside of the formal process which required him to patiently sit and wait for a Notice to Owner and instead to make a complaint, which he did on 7 February.

Just before that complaint a second PCN had been issued and thus it was that 2 days after the complaint Mr Mustard found himself challenging a second PCN issued at the same location in the same circumstances. He expanded upon the challenge to make it idiot proof (it wasn't).

The response really wasn't very good.

Before Mr Mustard could do anything another email popped into his inbox, just one second later!

The next day an explanation arrived in response to Mr Mustard's complaint.

Whilst pleased with the honest admission of error Mr Mustard was concerned about the public in general and so he asked about other possible errors:

The staff at Hackney are getting used to Mr Mustard and so they know it is best to reply as Mr Mustard will see things through.

As one can't force a parking department do the right thing, as they are generally self policing, so Mr Mustard went outside their world and asked the chief auditor to consider having a look. At that point he stopped chasing as audit programmes have to be planned in advance and he had put the germ of an idea there which may bring fruit in the future. That was all he could reasonably do.

If Hackney Council write the same load of old toffee to you do please ask Mr Mustard to act for you.

The end, for now.

Having completed the blog Mr Mustard went to shred the file and found a third PCN he had forgotten about. It was raised just before his email to the Auditor and it should have led Mr Mustard to point out further errors. Here is the gist of the third rejection, written by a third council employee, who also needs retraining as it contains different errors.

Error 1: The yellow stripes on the kerb signify a ban on loading, not on parking (waiting).

Error 2: You do not have to stay with your vehicle, you cannot ask your toddler to cross the road and walk to the nursery on their own. This question was considered by the High Court in the case of Makda, a taxi driver who went looking for his passenger.

Error 3: Never mind 'future contraventions' there hasn't been a contravention.

The end, until Hackney Council issue yet another PCN.