The Fairway - again

Sometimes when Mr Mustard looks on the internet for information he finds he has himself put something relevant into the public domain. That was how it turned out when it comes to the keep clear yellow zig zag markings in The Fairway, the previous post being here.

This latest tribunal decision is equally devoid of any real world view by some faceless council bureaucrat:

 

A learner driver will make errors (although they didn't on this occasion) because they are a learner and at the start of their first lesson they will know nothing. Some leeway should logically and fairly be given to driving school cars.

The end.

Try hard not to laugh

Another random tribunal decision about a PCN that Mr Mustard decided to read

Clear signs

 

The outcome, fancy thinking you were exempt when you didn't have a permit. 

 The end

Decorum in Dacorum

 

The above is the standard acknowledgment to formal representations made in response to a parking Notice to Owner. A representation in which Mr Mustard picked a lot of holes in the Notice. That was on 17 February 2024.

Mr Mustard checked the balance on line most weeks and could see the PCN was stuck at £50, being a lower value PCN outside London. Suddenly, on 16 November, he heard from his client.

Above we have a page about how wrong the driver was.

The first two paragraphs are padding about a process which has been and gone. In paragraph three we get to the meat of the matter, Dacorum had, by doing nothing, cancelled the Notice to Owner and given their oversight they also cancelled the PCN (they couldn't really do anything else almost a year after the PCN was issued).

Having signally failed to do their own job the council then give the registered keeper a warning about their future conduct which is a bit rich in the circumstances. If Dacorum always take this long they are deemed to have cancelled. Mr Mustard was confident of winning on this technical grounds in any event.

One day humility may come to parking. A short letter saying the council failed to stick to the deadline and they are sorry for the delay would be much better received and enhance their reputation.

The end.

Fat finger PCN relief

 

Another tribunal decision that Mr Mustard only looked at because the location was familiar.

Decent people everywhere will probably agree with Mr Mustard that this is a typical case of a penalty charge too far. There is zero traffic management purpose to this PCN, there was no wish to avoid paying and a PCN of this kind just helps the public to hate faceless council bureaucrats.

What Mr Mustard notices, and the adjudicator may well have done but he usually writes refreshingly short and to the point decisions, is that the letters E and W are adjacent on a qwerty keyboard and that the keyboard in question is a small metal type designed for its robustness not for the efficiency of pressing. With all respect to Mr Wall, who may have a piano player's fingers (at which point someone will tell me of excellent piano players known for their pudgy pinkies) this looks like a fat finger error. 

What Mr Mustard does in this kind of case is to give the council a choice, to accept the challenge and cancel the PCN or to refund the sum paid to park. Of course the greedy swine usually do neither and so hoist themselves on their own petard.

It couldn't just be about the money, could it?

the end.

You can stop in an empty yellow box junction

 

Another random tribunal decision which caught Mr Mustard's eye.

This not being one of Mr Mustard's cases the cctv is not available (unless you can put Mr Mushtaq in touch with him).

Mr Mustard went looking for a suitable image and found this one of a black cab which is stopped somewhat obstructively (although there isn't another vehicle in sight) but it isn't in contravention.

 

The story about the black cab is here. Mr Mustard does not know the outcome of the black cab PCN.

The issue of many moving traffic PCNs is 100% automated with a computer extracting snippets of footage, obtaining keeper details from DVLA and then printing a PCN. Before a PCN is generated, a human being is meant to check the cctv to verify that a contravention had occurred, this clearly does not happen. It doesn't seem to happen in Redbridge.

If Mr Mustard is out late one night he will visit Goodmayes Road and pull up in the empty yellow box for 10 seconds and see if he gets a PCN.

The end.

Barnet Council behaviour is inexplicable

Not Mr Mustard's description but that of a long serving (and occasionally suffering) adjudicator:

A restricted street is one with single or double yellow lines.

 

It wouldn't be wise in Greater London, or indeed in most urban areas, to leave a vehicle boot open whilst loading or unloading. If your delivery is out of sight of the car, as one can't always park right outside, then of course a traffic warden won't see any loading/unloading activity. That does not mean it is not happening.

If the council reject your loading/unloading argument you will have the ebst chance of winning at the tribunal if you go there in person (treat it like a fun day out, Mr Mustard has one every week) as then your honesty can be tested by the adjudicator and the council will rely only on the paper evidence so cannot dispute what you have to see on the day.

Good luck.

Barnet Council are 'surprising' (not a good thing)

Another random decision Mr Mustard fell over.

 

When a Solicitor expresses surprise it doesn't necessarily mean they are surprised. Legal people often employ withering under-statement to get one over their opponent in Court and this is what Mr Mustard thinks is happening here. Most of the time adjudicators don't make remarks about the viability of the case itself confining themselves to the factual rational of their decision.

Mr Mustard isn't sure which High Road this PCN was issued in (possibly East Finchley) so can't look at the bay markings for himself but clearly one bay ran into the other. 

What doesn't surprise Mr Mustard is that the council and their enforcement agents NSL could not see for themselves that the location layout was not clear enough. Traffic wardens are meant to check signs and lines before they issue a PCN so this 'ticket' was clearly wrong from the off. Rejecting perfectly good representations is a daily occurrence in the back office.

If we look at 2024 and representations rejected by Barnet Council Mr Mustard has taken 44 such cases to the tribunal. He has won on 38 occasions. The council should almost never lose, they need a radical overhaul.

The end.