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.

Not so smart in the City of London

 

The City of London must be getting a bit short of cash as they sent a PCN in the post for parking as above, for one minute, whilst the driver went to find someone to open the gates. The entrance is just before the end of Old Fleet Lane as below.

Now this isn't the sort of place you would park on a Thursday afternoon hoping that you wouldn't inconvenience anybody when the entrance is also the exit to this car park.

The £130 PCN is, and this may surprise you, for code 62 "Parked with one or more wheels on or over a footpath or any other part of a road other than a carriageway" and Mr Mustard can't be certain of convincing an adjudicator that the area where the car is to be found is carriageway although it clearly is for vehicles to pass over, rather than pedestrians, for the simple reason that the back of the car might have poked out over the natural line of the pavement. You can be ticketed anywhere between the two building lines for being on the pavement if you aren't clearly on the carriageway.

In this case the PCN has been sent in the post because the vehicle was driven off before the traffic warden had finished preparing the PCN. The City want proof from building security that this was into the car park but as their traffic warden hadn't finished preparing the PCN then presumably he/she knows which way the car went as they were standing next to it.

For postal PCN you get just the one chance to make representations. In response a council should then either accept or reject them. What the City have done is ask my client to provide evidence from building security that he did indeed enter the building on that day:

as if they will be able to remember who visited them by car a month ago

as if the same security guard will be on duty and 

as if my client has nothing better to do with his time than revisit the City from N3. 

Perhaps the City are trying to be helpful in offering my client the chance to provide further evidence or pay 50% in the 14 days since the date of the letter (which customarily should be 14 days from the date of service of the letter) but it is an unusual offer and outside of the legislation. What the rules state are that within 56 days of receipt the council must either accept or reject the representations and that they have not done so Mr Mustard thinks that the City have dropped a clanger.

What they should have done was to send a Notice of Rejection if they did not believe my client or cancel the PCN if either they did believe him or were going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Mr Mustard has to go now and email the City of London.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Oranges don't bear fruit for the council

Last week a reader (who had reluctantly paid his PCN) asked Mr Mustard to write about how he had been caught out by the orange lined spaces in the Woodhouse Road Car Park which spaces had already featured twice in PATAS reports and so have obviously caused a bit of confusion. Then along comes a suberb critique of those same spaces in the Castle Road Car Park (these orange spaces seem to be only in North Finchley - unless you know otherwise) and Mr Mustard doffs his cap to the motorist concerned:

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The main question to be considered is whether by virtue of the exceptional nature of the car park, which contains within it permit holder only spaces, it was necessary for the authority to provide extra signs in order for the restrictions to be fair.

The appellant says that he accepts that the notice board in the car park displays information that there are permit holder only spaces in the car park and that the spaces are marked out in orange. His case is that he has not known of a car park that contained permit holder only spaces before and that these were an exceptional feature. He submits that the authority ought to have displayed, in addition to all the other signs, extra signage adjacent to the spaces marked out in orange to show that these spaces were not ordinary pay by phone spaces but in fact permit holder only spaces.

The case of the authority is that the permit spaces are marked out in orange and details of the permit restrictions were outlined on the car park notice board.  It submits that the onus is on the driver to be aware of the restrictions as set out on the notice board.  It further submits that the car park restriction sign indicates that the orange bays are for car park permit holders only - (although it does not seem to have produced evidence of this sign - unless it is the same sign as the notice board: but this has not been made clear to me). The authority accepts that the appellant would have paid for parking had he parked in a non-permit holder space. It submits that it is not a justifiable reason to allow an appeal on the basis that motorists are unfamiliar with the area because it submits that the responsibility lies on motorists to familiarise themselves with the restriction in force prior to making their way.  It also submits that the contravention is one of strict liability and so unusual circumstances cannot be taken into consideration. It submits that motorists should check the signage in place before stopping.

I find as fact that: reasonable and adequate information was not made available to the appellant in the particular and exceptional circumstances of the car park; the authority has not acted sufficiently fairly to the appellant in all of the circumstances of this particular car park.

I accept the evidence of the appellant that he believed at the time that he was legally parked and that it is unusual to have permit holder only spaces in a car park.

I am unable to be satisfied that the authority has acted within the concept of fairness in the lay out of the car park because I accept the evidence of the appellant that the placing of permit holders parking places in a car park is unusual. The exceptional nature of the car park requires that the authority needed to display additional and appropriate signs in order for it to have discharged its duty to bring to the attention of the motoring public (including the appellant) reasonable and adequate information.

I am unable to accept the submissions of the authority that it is not a justifiable reason to allow this appeal because the circumstances are unusual. I am satisfied that the exceptional circumstances of the car park were not made sufficiently clear to the appellant who was not familiar with the lay out of the car park.

I am unable to accept that the contravention is merely one of strict liability and does not accommodate unusual circumstances because I find that further considerations can also apply to those merely of strict liability, and that they do in this appeal.

The authority also states that motorists should check the signage in place before stopping, however it has not supplied any evidence of signage that is sufficiently clear to warn motorists of the exceptional presence of permit holders only parking spaces before they stop.

The authority has raised further points which I have considered but which I do not find to be material.

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Hopefully some signs will go up adjacent to the bays now. They could also usefully appear next to disabled bays and the red market day bays in Lodge Lane Car Park (some exist but insufficient & not adjacent enough)

If you have been caught you too can use the above information to help you write your challenges. The PATAS case to quote in support of your argument (decisions are not precedents) is number 2150011443. You can search their public register here (now called London Tribunals).

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard