Greenwich 1 - Lambeth 0

Here is an image of a white car being driven the wrong side of a keep left bollard in Vanbrugh hill, Greenwich. A naughty and stupid piece of driving, you'll see the cctv a bit further on. Who is driving the car? someone with the permission of the London Borough of Lambeth, oh dear, do as I say not as I do.

Mr Mustard learnt about this case because the PCN ended up at the independent tribunal and here is the decision of the adjudicator.

This presented Mr Mustard with the long awaited opportunity to show you what a tribunal evidence pack looks like. It is produced by the 'prosecuting' borough, in this case Greenwich and includes Lambeth's evidence

Here is the video, a hideously bad, arrogant and dangerous move.

The end

Barnet Council issue 162 unlawful PCNs

 Here is the tribunal decision for no. 163

 

(Actually there aren't 162 unlawful PCNs as the ones issued to the motorcycle have, out of fairness, to be subtracted and Mr Mustard doesn't know how many that is but the number of unlawful PCNs must be over 80 and is probably over 100).

As the adjudicator observed the council should have stopped issuing unlawful PCNs and removed the vehicle to the pound. Mr Mustard suspects they didn't bother because they thought a broken down 20 year old van wouldn't sell for enough to cover their costs, which shouldn't be a traffic management consideration.

Mr Mustard recommends you don't leave your broken down vehicle in contravention for 6 months because the stress of 163 PCNs would be too much for most, it is the number that Mr Mustard deals with during 6 months although those are all different so slower to deal with. Far better to get some mates round, move the broken down vehicle by pushing it and then buying them a few beers.

162 PCNs at £130 each comes to £21,060 which is clearly excessive for one parking action. 

It appears that either Barnet Council hasn't got its parking contractor NSL under control or they colluded in this corporate stupidity.

The end.

Parallel crossings

 

Mr Mustard saw the above tweets last week and realised that he too was one of those drivers and cyclists (he is both and also a pedestrian) who hadn't, perhaps, kept up with the legal meaning of these new style crossings despite regularly buying the latest Highway Code when he is alerted to a new edition. It sort of didn't matter as whether on two wheels or four Mr Mustard is attentive at such a junction and gives way all the time to others rather than have a scrape and be filling in insurance claim forms.

Mr Mustard didn't think that cyclists had priority because of one simple fact, the give way line on the cycle track. Mr Mustard decided to see what the law says and this is to be found on pages 476/7 of the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016. This is available free on line or like Mr Mustard you can lash out £65 for a hard copy. Here are the relevant drawings

 

Just for completeness the square markings each side of the cycle crossing are diagram 1055.3 

These Elephants' Footprints, as they are known, merely delineate the lane, they don't have a give way meaning.

The zig zag lines come with complicated rules but luckily the Highway Code contains a simple interpretation:

 

The crossing Mr Mustard is most familiar with on his bicycle is the one in Montagu Road in Edmonton which looks like this:

He has found that as he cautiously approaches it is never long before a vehicle stops and lets him go for which they always get a friendly wave (Mr Mustard doesn't want to start a debate as to whether or not you should thank a driver for following the law but when he isn't chewing the ear off councils about unfair PCNs Mr Mustard is quite a friendly soul so he opts to wave as he thinks it makes the world a better place).

Mr Mustard's conclusion for the crossing in Hackney is that all people approaching should look, slow down, be prepared to give way and then cross when it is safe to do so. 

Avoid argument, insurance company paperwork, increased insurance premiums, broken bones or hospital food.

The end.

Words weighing heavily on Wandsworth Council

Here is a tribunal decision about 2 PCNs which Mr Mustard only looked at as he had a family connection to the road.

 

Here is a map of the area. The B229 is Burntwood Lane.

The refusal of Wandsworth Council to cancel a PCN to a company just trying to do its job, is thoroughly miserable and flies in the face of common sense. Just look at the size of this vehicle, total weight of up to 44 tonnes.

The routes available to a lorry of that size in streets this narrow are limited.

Well done to C K Transport for fighting as far as the tribunal. It causes councils huge amounts of work and seeing them hoist on the petard of their own traffic order is most amusing as are the opening words of the adjudicator that he'll carry on without the rep. as they are going to win.

The end.

The Unfairway - Barnet

 

Here we have a tribunal decision for stopping on the yellow zig zag markings outside a school. The motorist was unhappy about the PCN and the adjudicator agreed it was unjust and cancelled it, using nice legal words about mischief and focussing on the traffic management purpose.

If you look at the location in question (Mr Mustard doesn't know exactly where this alleged contravention occurred) you can get a feeling for what happened.

To get into that parking space, reversing first as is usual, you have to stop briefly on the right hand half of the carriageway, the section to which the yellow markings apply. It would be the same if you stopped to allow the car in front to park, you can't smash into it to avoid stopping. That is an entirely different situation to someone stopping on the markings to take a phone call or to drop their children off.

Common sense has prevailed. Why doesn't Barnet Council have some, here is a selection of possible reasons:-

- a computer selects cctv clips of possible contraventions, the computer doesn't have a brain.

- the person who is meant to check the clip either doesn't bother or isn't concentrating

- the person who decides whether to accept a representation or not is either a bit dense or doesn't care

- it's all about the money.

If you think your PCN is unfair take it to the tribunal after you get a formal Notice of Rejection. You get a fairer hearing than from Barnet Council as the qualified lawyer who decides your case is independent and not motivated by the revenue stream.

The end.

Barnet Council profiting from protest

Mr Mustard thinks that his readers will be well aware of the protest outside the Phoenix Cinema on 23 May 24.

This led to the High Road being closed to southbound traffic (and probably the other way also as the crowd got bigger).

As vehicles couldn't get through, some turned right where they shouldn't. It isn't clear yet to Mr Mustard how they came to go that way, whether the police on foot directed vehicles that way or if some signs had been hurriedly erected. Barnet Council issued PCNs by post for contraventing the no right turn into East End Road.

The above image is a still taken from a short cctv clip in which 5 cars drove against the sign. You can see that buses are queued up waiting for the road to clear or other instructions from base.

Mr Mustard needs your help.

Do you have any photos or dashcam footage to show how vehicles were diverted, if they were as Barnet Council won't relent and cancel a PCN. Evidence is needed to show that the vehicles were exempt from the no right turn as they were if they were instructed by a policeman/woman in uniform or by diversion signs.

Please email them to mrmustard@zoho.com

Obviously common sense is that the PCNs aren't needed from a traffic management point of view as there is no danger from doing a right turn when there isn't any oncoming traffic but the council don't let common sense get in the way of raising a fortune.

Thanks

The end.

Automated unlawfulness - Redbridge Council

Here is a recent tribunal decision about a PCN

Councils make enormous use of automation to keep their industrial quantities of PCNs on track, or in this case to run it into the buffers. This is not as rare as you might think. A Notice of Rejection informs the recipient that unless payment or an Appeal is made within the period of 28 days beginning with the date of service of the Notice of Rejection that a Charge Certificate may be served. Thus the public know what should happen but probably don't realise the effect of the council failing. Actual service is the date when the Notice drops through your letterbox and deemed service is 2 working days after the Notice was actually posted (which may not be the date on the Notice if councils are slapdash or something went wrong). The state of postal deliveries is well known at present, they could be better.

In this case the Notice of Rejection was, it appears, posted on 17 June.

That was a Monday.

In the absence of evidence about actual service it was deemed served on Wednesday 19 June.

That date, 19 June counts as day 1.

Thus day 28 will be a Tuesday and the motorist had up until midnight on Tuesday 16 July to start an in time Appeal (adjudicators have discretion to accept late appeals if there is an acceptable to them reason).

An Appeal was started on 14 July but would take one or two days to be registered (the tribunal are usually very efficient) and so just as they were about to be told about the Appeal, which freezes further processing until 28 days after the hearing decision has been served, Redbridge Council had, two days too early, already issued a Charge Certificate. Although they can't serve a charge certificate the mere issuing of it early would count against them as the council don't yet have the right to serve.

If this happens to you always point it out to the adjudicator and produce the Charge Certificate you were sent as that is absolute proof of it. That should then be the end of your PCN. You can quote the above decision number as being legally persuasive (adjudication decisions are not precedents).

How could a Notice of Rejection be issued in error? Mr Mustard hears you ask. 

Of course it should never happen. There are various scenarios which include the next progression date being manually wrongly set, the wrong next progression status being applied or the software having the wrong number of numbers set for the next stage. This happened in Islington not long ago and as that is a council which listens to Mr Mustard he suggested they add a few more days to the standstill interval in the automatic process in a certain situation and they agreed. Win, win. Mr Mustard doesn't have the same good relationship with Redbridge who are near the bottom of the table, in his opinion, when it comes to the parking process and complying with the law.

In summary, don't be mugged by a council, learn everything you can about PCNs and you will save money.

The end.