Don't be green in yellow boxes

 

This location on the A1 just north of Apex Corner has had cctv installed to monitor the yellow box.

Mr Mustard knows that the car in the top right of the box received a PCN as probably did the car in front and possibly the cars in lanes 3 & 4 as their rear wheels were in the box. You are fine exiting Marsh Lane, it is the drivers coming south who should all stop at the top edge of the box and then only move forward once they can cross the entire box and make an escape but that would make traffic flow worse so we all have to gamble and pay the price if it goes wrong.

If Mr Mustard realised he had erred and was going to be caught if he stopped he would have turned left into Marsh Lane, not done a U-turn until it was allowed (as there is a ban just as you enter Marsh Lane) and then rejoined the A1 south.

Be careful out there.

Boxing clever ?

 

Mr Mustard has seen this location a few times recently as the camera is relatively new so all those people who used the junction with The Burroughs to go north up the A41 from Hendon Central tube station and then back south down the A41 on the other carriageway and have now been caught out. Whilst it is arguable that this is two right turns an adjudicator might well think otherwise as this one did. This is because causing the vehicle to face in the opposite direction is at the heart of the contravention.

Mr Mustard was rather confused by the fact that the seller registered the car in a random name (and then takes insurance, if any, in their real name and insures the random name as a named driver) because Muhammed Ali seemed rather random to him.

What this decision does show is that all of the peripheral information about insurance, DVLA registration, vehicle tax and where and when you are taking delivery when added together can prove your case so if you have it, use it, no-one else will prove your case for you.

Mr Mustard thinks that DVLA always give out the name of the new owner if the alleged contravention is on the date of sale. They should really give both lots of information to the council/TfL and leave them to decide who the keeper is and/or the time of handover should have to be declared as well as the date, given the trouble it can cause.

Please don't pay a PCN when you did not incur it.

The end.

TfL - as slippery as sin

A congestion charge PCN had a long (and unhappy) life. The issue date of 2 December 2023 was a Saturday and that is enough to invalidate it, a Congestion Charge PCN must be posted on the date of issue as otherwise motorists lose some of their statutory time to respond and it is a straightforward breach of the law. Here is the PCN history in backwards date order:

The PCN went wrong the month after Mr Mustard had made the fornal representations which were to the effect that the motorist had been short changed as to time to respond. TfL decided that what he had written didn't amount to a representation (they aren't the first enforcement authority to try this silliness but none so far has prevailed in their attempt)

Mr Mustard knows the proper procedure to follow inside out and so he fired a warning shot across the bows of TfL clearly pointing out why they were wrong:

That email to a named officer (employee), sent on 11 January, met with a response on 14 February in which TfL said they would send a full response and the penalty would remain on hold.

(The named officer is known to a friend of Mr Mustard's who describes him as usually looking like he is chewing a wasp).

Not on hold for long: on 16 February, a charge certificate was issued which increased the penalty to £270. Ouch.

The issue of a charge certificate made it look to the motorist as if Mr Mustard didn't know what he was doing. He usually does (if he drops a clanger he makes good financially & does not have to put his hand in his pocket very much at all).

On 20 February Mr Mustard emailed the group inbox of TfL (cccorrespondence@tfl.gov.uk) pointing out the error of sending a charge certificate at a time when the file was on hold due to a representation and suggesting that out of fairness TfL would now want to cancel the PCN.

That email didn't do any good either. The penalty was registered by TfL as a debt at the Traffic Enforcement Centre, part of the Northampton County Court (but mostly just a register of supposedly overdue PCNs).

The motorist had to visit a Solicitor and swear a Statutory Declaration that he had made in time representations, which was never in doubt as they were on TfL's files.

It took less than a week for the TEC to cancel the Charge Certificate, the PCN still staying alive in such a situation.

Another fortnight passed and TfL finally cancelled the PCN. If they sent an apology it didn't reach Mr Mustard, via his client, but the case history doesn't show one. Good manners are rather missing in the world of PCNs, they shouldn't be.

The end.

Van hire violations - TfL guilty of illegality

When you rent a van and contravene parking or moving traffic rules (stopping in yellow boxes, banned turns etc) liability for the PCN can be transferred from the hire company to you if certain details are on the hire agreement for agreements lasting up to 6 months (less a day).

Transfer for long leases is possible by another method.

Years ago Mr Mustard was introduced to a Barnet based hire company by a mutual acquaintance. Let us call them BV. Mr Mustard only helps BV with their problem PCNs as they employ a person to deal with the routine.

If a PCN can be transferred to the customer then it is. BV routinely provide a copy of the hire agreement as proof that the rules for transfer have been complied with. BV had a little white Euro 6 compliant van. They hired it to SL (hirer #1) for a period of almost 5 months. Here are the hires for those 5 months.

SL stopped with half the van in a red route bus stop on 27 January.

On 28 January TfL asked DVLA for keeper details.

On 29 January DVLA supplied the details of BV.

On 31 January TfL sent a PCN to BV.

On 4 February BV supplied the details of SL.

On 16 February TfL sent a fresh PCN to SL who didn't immediately deal with it but did finally pay up on 4 May.

So far so good. SL returned the van early by arrangement. It was driven after that by a number of law abiding renters who all avoided incurring PCNs. Notable by their mistakes was hirer #6 who made the classic error of using the Rotherhithe Tunnel which now has a van gross vehicle weight limit of 2 tonnes. This has caught out tens of thousands of drivers as there are far too many signs to take in at once.

What should have happened next for each of the April PCNs was that TfL should have asked DVLA for the keeper details on each of those dates and sent BV a PCN for each alleged contravention. This is in accordance with the London Local Authorities and Transport for London 2003 Act.

TfL didn't do that. They sent PCNs to SL who knew they were a mistake. He phoned TfL who told him to make representations. SL did not do so and you can partly understand why, he had returned the van, he knew he was not liable, he probably assumed the errors would be corrected. In August the PCNs had progressed, even though TfL knew they had the wrong man, and they got sent to bailiffs.

It was only in November that Mr Mustard got involved. He complained to TfL and that was when he discovered that TfL keep a secret database of hire agreements and although they ask DVLA to confirm ownership in relation to every single PCN they only use that to check the hire company is still the same and if it is they skip the legal requirement to send a PCN to the hire company, let them make representations and then transfer liability to the hirer, because TfL think they know who the hirer is. That is the big flaw in their 'approach' as TfL blithely call their illegal acts. 

BV tell Mr Mustard that only 60% of hires complete on the pre-planned end date and so TfL's database will often be wrong, as it was in this case. Innocent motorists should not be dragged into the PCN process for other motorists. Having obtained the facts from TfL (they had to be dragged out of them, requiring 3 emails over 6 weeks, silence often a clue that you have hit a painful nerve) Mr Mustard has now made a complaint and pointed out what Mr Mustard considers are data processing breaches and demanded action:

1        Forward this email to the officer responsible for data breaches to consider whether TfL should self report.
2        Forward this email to the officer responsible for ensuring that TfL (and their contractor, believed to be Capita) strictly follow the 2003 Act and follow it in future when issuing PCNs by sending the PCN to the keeper as registered at the DVLA on the relevant date.
3        Delete the entire database of vehicles on hire or at least stop adding to or referring to it.
4        Cancel the five PCNs which have been illegally sent to an innocent party.
5        Apologise to both BV and SL and make offers of compensation.

BV have been deprived of five £18 PCN processing fees which hirer #6 should have paid.

Mr Mustard will update you when he gets a response.

In the meantime Mr Mustard wonders if any other enforcement authority in London has decided upon the same wizard wheeze to save time and postage. If you are reading this, you work at a council in London and you have an illegal database like TfL (or heaven forfend you all share one) Mr Mustard suggests you run for the hills as he is coming for you.

End

Location, location, location.

This is a PCN case which Mr Mustard won late last year but has only just got around to reporting it.

Here is the PCN

 Here is the car, the black one, the first in view.

 Here is a better view of the road sign

Whilst City Road is just around the corner the PCN has to be accurate as to date and time, place, alleged contravention. The colour of the car would not matter if wrong and TfL don't bother stating it.

In this case as soon as the error in the location was pointed out TfL cancelled, the car was clearly in City Garden Row. They only get one bite of the cherry the same as you do to park in compliance.

End.

TfL - sign of the times

Mr Mustard doesn't look tribunal decisions other than for Barnet but sometimes he stumbles over ones that are interesting, like this one. 6 December was a Sunday so the days on the sign are relevant.

Why TfL fought the Appeal is unclear as a motorist wouldn't make up a story about sign changes as they are all logged by whoever erects them. Also, they have all been photographed by the google streetview car, and others, and clearly this sign has been changed at some point.

 

Costs are rarely awarded but the adjudicator thought that the high bar had been reached on this occasion.

One can only hope that the effect of a modest costs order will make TfL more particular about facts in future.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

 

TfL desperately needed the revenue

 

Add caption

Thank goodness for adjudicators bringing the law and common sense to bear.

Whoever at TfL/Capita decided to reject the representations and leave A1 Loo Hire with the choice of paying £640 or going to the tribunal made a terrible and unfair decision.

Too much power has been given to faceless stupid local bureaucrats.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

ULEZ - were TfL frit?

Mr Mustard is going to tell you a story. He was asked to take over fighting a PCN at the tribunal Appeal stage. He said yes, but let's start at the beginning.

Let us call the motorist Mr H. He entered the ULEZ area at 9 of an evening so the congestion zone was not in force at that time. He knew nothing of the ULEZ as he is a member of a religious minority which does not expose itself to mass media and he did not see a ULEZ sign as he said in his representations against the PCN. He pointed out to TfL that Dart Charge let you off your first contravention if you ask them (usually) as long as you pay for the crossing itself and asked to be allowed to do the same for the ULEZ. He could not, of course, use that argument again in the future.

The whole point of these schemes is to obtain compliance but enforcement authorities appear to run them instead to maximise revenue.

Despite the short nature of the representations, TFL's Notice of Rejection ran into 3 dense pages of explanation about the setting up of the scheme, consultations, publicity, signs and so on. Ultimately, TfL rejected the representations which admitted to not paying to enter the zone because Mr H hadn't paid to enter the zone, a somewhat circular reason. There was no attempt to consider cancelling the PCN because this was a first contravention or due to not having seen any advertisements about it. Nor did TfL point out where the missed sign or signs where.

Mr H was unhappy so he put the whole £160 penalty at risk and make his own Appeal to the tribunal. The grounds were technical ones, that the Notice of Rejection threatened to send him a Charge Certificate before TfL were legally entitled to do so. At that point TfL did not know Mr Mustard was waiting in the wings. TfL decided to contest the Appeal and produced the evidence pack which had the usual 70 pages. TfL only wanted 50% (£80) if they won. They sometimes do this when you get your Appeal in to the tribunal within 14 days of their Notice of Rejection being issued. It is a simple decision therefore to go to the tribunal as there is nothing to lose.

At this point Mr Mustard went on file at the tribunal as an authorised representative and filed a skeleton argument a few days before the hearing date. As TfL rather unhelpfully don't allow on line Appeals to be made to the tribunal, and don't give out an email address, their copy of the skeleton argument had to be posted to them, so they would only have got it 2 days before the hearing, which doesn't give them a fair crack at defending themselves.

At the scheduled tribunal hearing the Adjudicator had clearly read the papers before Mr Mustard had entered the room and said that he wanted to adjourn the hearing for 28 days to give TfL an opportunity to respond to the important points which had only just been raised. Mr Mustard agreed as he wanted the points decided upon as they were substantive issues. The Adjudicator duly wrote to TfL seeking their detailed response.

This was the skeleton argument which Mr Mustard had filed:

Early threat of a charge certificate.*

Whilst TfL refer to this ground of Appeal in the case summary (and 8 pages is not a summary and is unfair on Appellants who represent themselves) they do not dispute it.

Accordingly the demand exceeded that applicable in the circumstances of the case.

The Notice of Rejection did not comply with Reg 17(2)(a). It is ultra vires. (Reg 15(1) is also applicable so add that in. Best have a good read!)

Mitigation not properly considered

The Appellant's case was very simple. His religious observance meant he did not know of the new ULEZ scheme. The Notice of Rejection goes on for 3 pages (which is procedurally unfair and likely to put many people off the idea of Appealing to the tribunal as they are effectively browbeaten by the volume) and doesn't really get to grips with the actual representation. TfL said 'because the daily charge has not been purchased. It is clear the PCN had been correctly issued'. Using against the motorist the facts which had been admitted cannot be said to be considering the mitigation. The nub of the representation was that the ULEZ scheme had not been heard of and nor had a sign been observed en route. The Notice of Rejection should have said why TfL were not prepared to exercise their discretion (they would only have to do this once as Dart Charge do as it happens and future compliance should be more important than raising revenue) and provided evidence of the sign that was passed. Neither of these things were in the Notice of Rejection.

I do not think that, based upon what they have written, which was all about the preparations for and implementation of the charging scheme, TfL can be said to have adequately considered the representations in line with Reg 13(6) (RUC Regs 2001**).

No evidence a sign was passed.

The representations denied that a sign was passed. No proof has been adduced of the sign or signs in place at the point of entry to the charging zone. Baker Street is a long road. A more informative description is essential to adequately describe the contravention. (Such a description does arrive in the case summary, the junction with Paddington St)

Sign is compliant but not adequate.

It is all very well putting up compliant signs but are they adequate? To a person who has never heard of the ULEZ coming across 'sign A' whilst driving along and at the point of entering the zone, has seconds in which to decide what classes of vehicle are affected and whether or not their particular vehicle is likely to be affected. Given the complete lack of information on the sign I do not think that the individual motorist is given adequate information as they aren't given any except that they are at the edge of the zone. They are not told the classes of vehicle which are affected nor the emissions levels which a vehicle must meet.

Mr Mustard went on holiday for 2 weeks. Whilst he was away, and a mere 6 days after the adjudicator had asked TfL to provide their detailed response, TfL instead decided to exercise their discretion and no longer wished to contest the Appeal. Now why didn't they do that when Mr H wrote to them or when Mr H filed their Appeal?

Have they taken fright or has Mr Mustard hit the bulls eye with one of this arguments? We'll never know except that we might. If you have a Notice of Rejection for a ULEZ PCN or if you have already started an Appeal at London Tribunals you might want to borrow one or more of Mr Mustard's arguments. (Mr Mustard expects that the Notice of Rejection will have been recently corrected, since the start of August).

*Expanding on the first argument, the PCN said this:

The Notice of Rejection said this:

and thus the Notice of Rejection demanded payment before it was legally due, because the date of service of the Notice of Rejection is usually 2 days after the date of the Notice and as the Notice of Rejection did not offer what the PCN offered nor what the legislation demands (the time periods for paying or Appealing the Notice of Rejection being the same 28 days after service).

Good luck.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

This story, received via the twitter account of the ABD (@TheABD) shows you how little known the ULEZ is. Close to 130,000 PCNs in 3 months. £10,400,000 to shore up TFL's budget and ultra low emissions within the zone clearly not achieved.

** The Road User Charging (Enforcement and Adjudication) (London) Regulations 2001.

Tfl - congestion zone - seconds out

Mr Mustard was consulted by a lady who enters the congestion charge once a week at the end of the day and is well aware of the times.

She was sent a PCN timed at 17:59 which Mr Mustard thought was a little harsh as the zone ends, allowing free entry, at 18:00. Mr Mustard also remembered the below Barnet decision:

He asked the lady to find the exact time at which she entered and started an Appeal regardless as paying even the 50% (£80) was not palatable for less than 60 seconds of alleged early entry. Having made a Subject Access Request of TfL this was the gobbledegook response received.

Mr Mustard thought that the answer was not the whole truth so he changed tack. A copy of the cctv was requested by the vehicle owner (it is awaited, doubtless it will now be said to have been destroyed which will lead to more enquiries) and he made a Freedom of Information request for the earliest and latest times in recent years.

What we see from the table is that sometime between April 18 and March 19 the leeway provided at the end of the day was reduced from the 2 minutes which was in Mr Musatrd's memory to 1 minute and then sometime during April 19 to zero minutes.

Which faceless functionary made that policy decision? Whoever is was, they have been given too much power.

What we also see is that the TfL answer to the lady who enquired for the exact time to the second was a bare faced lie as they were able to produce bags more information for Mr Mustard if he wanted it, but he already had all he needed.

If you get a congestion charge PCN later than 17:58 I would fight it on the grounds that your car was showing 18:00 and/or that the pips had gone on the car radio. The cameras may be synchronised to the atomic clock at the start of the day but could be out of sync by the end of the day.

The grounds of Appeal prepared by Mr Mustard were these, which you are free to copy for your own case

As soon as TfL saw the grounds of Appeal, they threw in the towel and cancelled the PCN. Their pursuit of a £160 penalty in this situation was a gross abuse of power.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

TfL are a disgrace - in the nature of a guest blog

The facts:

I hope you're well. I'm afraid I have another query for you on behalf of my parents. I will try to keep the facts brief but can provide more detail if needed.

- parents have moved house, new owners called this week to say they have some post for them. Parents collected post to find 2 charge certificates from TfL for non payment of PCNs (congestion charge)
- new owners of house state that no previous correspondence has been received (i.e. The Pcns themselves or any reminders)
- charge certificates state payment required in 14 days (i.e. by 8 august) otherwise they will register it as a debt
- I believe a statutory declaration is required (or two) to say that parents did not receive PCNs?
- reason for not paying congestion charge is that vehicle is registered under blue badge discount for my grandmother however the email sent by TfL to ask whether that should be renewed was sent to my grandfather who sadly passed away last year. Therefore email account not checked and discount expired around march this year.
- parents did have a mail redirect initially but this had stopped by the time PCN issued. However new owners are in touch and would / should have told them if they had post
- my dad (registered keeper) did not update DVLA until recently, however he says (I am asking him to double check this) that when he called them (in July) to update his address they told him they already had new address. Not sure how this is possible but perhaps they obtained it via an alternative source..? 

Any chance of success with this do you think? Presume first would have to attempt statutory declaration then if successful, make representations? Out of interest, when log in to TfL site it still seems to allow us to make reps even though supposedly you cannot do this once charge certificate issued.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give us!

Although Mr Mustard wasn't managing the PCNs he keeps an eye on things. One PCN was settled and the other marched forward through the process to the bailiff. He enquired what had happened.

Thanks for your email. Yes - it was a complete nightmare for my parents as you can imagine. TfL are a disgrace - despite my parents sending in the relevant stat dec signed by a solicitor etc, TfL managed to lose it. My parents then got another statutory declaration signed and witnessed etc and followed up with the TEC who confirmed all received and sent to TfL, and that bailiffs would definitely be put on hold. Next thing they know, very unpleasant bailiff at door a few days later. My parents were already in the middle of a major family crisis so had no option but to pay full amount (it was a weekend and nobody from TfL or TEC available of course).  (2 swearing fees of c. £10 would have had to be paid)

My mum called tfl on the Monday and TfL actually admitted they had failed to correctly notify bailiffs and agreed to cancel ticket. Now my parents are waiting for refund - who knows if it will ever materialise.

Thank you for keeping track of this - I have to say that I despair at organisations like TfL and others whose disorganisation and ruthlessness causes innocent people an extraordinary amount of stress and upset.

Please keep up your good work in helping people to fight back!

The problem is that parking departments automate as much of the process as they can simply because of the volume they deal with. TfL issue around 500,000 PCNs each year. Thus the personal input which would stop most stupid process errors just isn't built into the system and that is wrong.

The parents are out of pocket, they are due an apology for the error in instructing the bailiffs and should be compensated for the worry but that simply doesn't happen.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Tinkering at the edges

yes, to all of the above alternatives + less traffic

Mr Mustard has met Derek Epstein in the past but begs to differ with him on this occasion and with the Barnet Society (who generally do good work in safeguarding the interests of High Barnet) and with the Barnet Residents Association (of which he is a member) but Mr Mustard is entitled to his viewpoint and he hates waste. This spending is profligate in the extreme.

The irony of the above opinion, is that it is in the window of a closed shop unit in the Spires, which seems to be suffering even more than the High Street with empty units despite having no traffic going through it whatsoever.

Anyway, here are Mr Mustard's comments and objection which he has sent to barnet.highst@barnet.gov.uk

You can make up your own mind & send any view to the council by 21 June 18.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

In case you don't have it, the Barnet Council & Re letter of 31 May 18.

 

TfL - Turn fractionally Late = PCN

If there was ever any doubt that those public servants who have been given huge big brother power have let it go to their heads, here it is. At a badly signed no right turn from the Upper Richmond Road into Dryburgh Rd the vehicle arrowed started to turn before 7am when the restriction starts and can be said to have made the turn when this still was taken, at 2 seconds past the start time of the no right turn restriction. Does this really deserve a PCN for £130?

The odd thing is that if the vehicle had been entering the congestion zone it would not have been ticketed within the first or last 2 minutes of the zone hours. Only TfL know why they don't apply the same sensible discretion to the use of their powers at timed banned turns.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Taking flipping Liberties - or TfL for short

Mr Mustard's client received the above Notice to Owner, but hadn't got the PCN and thus the location description was too vague to satisfy the requirement to set out the grounds on which a penalty was due.

Mr Mustard made the formal representations on line & in time, that due to the vague description on the Notice to Owner, the contravention was denied (his client often being in the Stamford Hill area & not having a PCN from the relevant date).

TfL wrote this:

Mr Mustard ignored the letter as formal representations had already been made which TfL were obliged to accept or reject within 56 days, the letter itself confirming that representations had been made. There wouldn't have been any photographs on a PCN given out at the roadside.

TfL neither accepted nor rejected the representations. After 67 days they issued a Charge Certificate as if no representations had been made and that increased the balance due by 50% to £195

Mr Mustard has now lodged a complaint which TfL will, if they do as they usually do, fail to respond to. Then Mr Mustard's client will be forced to lodge a witness statement in order to obtain a tribunal hearing. TfL will have wasted the £8 debt registration fee and the £30 tribunal fee and will lose the Appeal because they have not followed the set procedure. It is just plain wrong to put the client through the mill like this, a mill he shouldn't be anywhere near.

Mr Mustard has noticed a few enforcement authorities acting in this way (Islington & Camden to name but two, not Barnet generally). They receive formal representations which are valid but they don't like what is said so they engage the motorist (the Owner technically) in correspondence which is not within the Regulations which govern the Appeal process.

Mr Mustard thinks an extra letter would be reasonable if it was to the benefit of the motorist, something like:

Dear Sir / Madam

You have made a representation that your blue badge had slipped off the dashboard. If you provide a copy of that badge to us within the next 14 days we will cancel your PCN. If you do not do so we will reject your representations and you will then have the right of Appeal to an independent adjudicator.

Yours etc

That approach is in accordance with the letter of the Regulations and the spirit of exercising discretion in suitable cases (not likely though on the 20th time your badge falls off the dashboard).

If you are sent extra correspondece of the less clear kind Mr Mustard advises counting 56 days from the date of your representation being delivered to the enforcement authority for parking contraventions and 90 days for other, moving traffic, contraventions and then telling the authority that in the absence of their Notice of Rejection they have accepted the representations by default and that the PCN must be cancelled. (If their Notice of Rejection has actually got lost in the post you will have to go down the witness statement route in any event).

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Enforcement authorities duel it out

Great use of the public purse? One publicly funded authority defending themselves against another one. Whilst you might think Hackney Council lost, really the tax payer did as they paid for both sides to fight.

Completely fair of TfL though to not show any favouritism, they are happy to take anyone's money.

Going to the tribunal to argue the discount is a waste of time as the adjudicator must apply the law & not use discretion. Hackney would have opposed such an argument if used against them.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

TfL - avoiding the tough questions and the easy ones.

Mr G's house was undergoing major refurbishment. If the builders were not on site there was no letterbox to put his post through. He made other arrangements with the Royal Mail but they went wrong. This meant that he did not receive the cctv based PCN dated 8 November 16 for allegedly stopping on a red route where prohibited on 4 November.

Postal PCN of this type have a nasty sting in the tale. Not long after 28 days have elapsed a Charge Certificate is served. This is a demand for an extra 50%. Thus the first that Mr G knew of the event was a demand for £195 dated 15 December 16.

On 6 January 17 Mr G heard of Mr Mustard though a mutual friend. Mr G asked for help.

On 13 January Mr Mustard wrote to TfL and asked them the straight question, was the PCN returned to TfL.

On 19 January TfL registered the PCN as a debt at the TEC (think of it as a PCN debt register within the County Court). The standard £8 court fee was added.

On 25 January Mr G signed, & Mr Mustard filed at the TEC, a witness statement that the PCN had not been received. This entitled TfL to issue a fresh one.

On 27 January TfL wrote to Mr G responding to Mr Mustard's letter (very poor form and possibly calculated to undermine the representative) as follows:

Do you see an answer to the simple question as to whether they got the PCN back undelivered? No. Silence implies assent. The correspondence never claimed to be a representation, just a factual request but that didn't suit TfL so they ignored it. Silly billies.

Also on 27 January the TEC cancelled the charge certificate and told TfL as such.

On 17 February TfL as was their right, a foolish move but there you go, sent a fresh PCN in the post to Mr G. By then we were back to £130.

On 3 March Mr Mustard made the representations (challenge to you) on line in the name of Mr G:

On 28 March TfL wrote to Mr G as if he had not made any representations at all

There was no letter, there were clear representations made on line and Mr G not writing back at this time did not give TfL the right to do anything other than consider the representations made.

On 4 April Mr Mustard wrote in Mr G's name to say that representations had been made and then he kindly popped them into the appropriate legally defined categories.

On 12 May TfL sent a Notice of Rejection. This is meant to tell you why the particular representations have not been accepted. Can you see the reasons?

There was more nauseatingly sanctimonious irrelevant drivel after that but nowhere did TfL explain why they were rejecting any of the three clearly made representations. TfL offered to accept £65 instead of £130 if Mr G did not take them to appeal (which costs them £30). With the cast iron case that Mr Mustard was looking at there was zero prospect of Mr G having to get his wallet out so the inducement fell on deaf ears . Mr Mustard wrote to Mr G:

I suspect that TfL will not contest the Appeal once it has been made. 

This was for several reasons one of which, an unassailable ground, was that TfL did not serve the Notice of Rejection until more than 56 days after the representations had been served on them. That timetable is set out in law for parking contraventions (it is longer for moving traffic, but stopping = parking).

On 24 May, Mr Mustard hand delivered the Notice of Appeal to the tribunal (one of seven he handed in that day). The date for an oral hearing was set, 21 June 17. Yesterday Mr Mustard started checking to see if any evidence had been filed, instead he found that TfL had decided on 9 June to not contest the Appeal = they will cancel the PCN. A pity they have not told either Mr G or Mr Mustard as yet.

What lessons should they learn from this sorry tale:

1.  If Mr Mustard asks you a question you should answer it even if that is to your detriment.

2.   Mr Mustard contests every single Notice of Rejection at the tribunal so think before you Reject.

3.  It is necessary to at least tackle the representations, even if you answer them badly. Failing to tackle them at all is a procedural impropriety which is a guaranteed win at the tribunal.

4.  Issuing a Notice of Rejection out of time is also a procedural impropriety, one which Mr Mustard will spot.

5.  A proper system should be put in place to deal with undelivered mail. It is dishonest to plough on as if nothing has happened.

6.  If you behave in the manner in which an enforcement authority should behave, with the utmost probity, you will not get your dirty linen aired on a well read blog.

Think about it TfL.

This case reinforces Mr Mustard's view that there needs to be an external, at least annual, audit of parking enforcement within local authorities to proactively assure the public that authorities are acting honestly because they sure as heck aren't. The external auditors need to be able to impose sanctions and order redress for wrongdoing to make councils less money and more service motivated than they currently are.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

You can't do this TfL

Here is the history of the PCN from the TfL website (quite useful now for the public - other London Boroughs please copy this)

So TfL you have issued a Charge Certificate but representations were made on 24 August so you can't do that:

but you forgot to log them despite writing for more info on 13 September which included the following line:

'Failure to provide a response within this time could result in your representation being rejected'.

No response was made and you neither accepted nor rejected the representations and so having failed to respond within 56 days you accepted the Representations by default in accordance with the relevant Regulations.

Your charge certificate is an unlawful demand for money coupled with the threat of court action. You had best withdraw it, apologise to my client and pay compensation. £130 would be about right reduced to £65 if paid within 14 days.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Yellow (box) Fever comes to Barnet

this is good advice

For many years yellow box junction rules have been enforced across London. Barnet was one of the few sane places where yellow box rules were not ruthlessly & mercenarily enforced and Barnet was none the worse for that as Mr Mustard can't remember his route being blocked at a yellow box junction since his business was started here in 1987.

not clear by the time you get there but clear now, at this very moment

The above sign is from outside the UK but perfectly encapsulates the way you have to drive if you wish to avoid a PCN for £130.

Starting from the beginning of May, and PCNs are working their way into Mr Mustard's email inbox, the following locations are being enforced by computerised cameras, cameras which are incredibly efficient (at least 99.9%) in spotting contraventions.

High St. Barnet has not been installed but Hendon Broadway has been, perhaps it is more profitable?

Mr Mustard has seen the bill for installing these cameras. It was £300,000 + vat because:

A.  That's how much Barnet Council care about road safety, or

B.  That's the sum worth investing in order to recover £millions in PCN income.

You decide which of the above two statements motivates our allegedly cash strapped council who can't afford to keep our libraries open but can afford to buy sneaky cameras to catch motorists who stop in a yellow box junction for a millisecond.

How do you avoid becoming a victim of the yellow box junction / money box junction. Those lovely (or possibly not) people at TfL have produced a video guide as to how to drive when approaching a yellow box junction. It bears absolutely no relation to how traffic flows in London, especially West Hampstead where the featured florist is located, and they have not put many vehicles in their demos so the video isn't related to real life in London

at 50s the car going north clearly enters the box before the exit is clear, oh dear, TfL! and at 1.13 / 1.14 when real traffic flow is featured, oops.

Sadly, TfL, who wouldn't engage on twitter, have made a mistake in their video & let the red van enter the yellow box at 39s (freeze the video there) when the exit is not clear by a van length. If the white car had catastrophically broken down and stopped at that point, the red van would have been in contravention and received a PCN from an automatic camera system which has no humanity.

If we all drove in this way, waiting for the entire box to be clear, only 2 or 3 cars would get across the yellow box in the green phase of the traffic lights and London would grind to a halt, thus defeating the traffic management purpose.

This though is how you should drive in London & Barnet if you want to be sure that you will not receive a PCN. What of course most people do is judge the traffic flow and estimate that the exit will be clear by the time they get there, that is wrong and then, if the traffic should stop before they anticipated, they will be punished by a £130 PCN. It is a rough world.

These PCN are hard to beat. Please drive the way that TfL suggest (but allow even more space than they do in their not quite correct video), jam Barnet up but avoid wasting your hard earned cash.

Currently Mr Mustard does have an escape route for yellow box junction PCN but he doesn't expect it to last, so please drive smarter and slower using the TfL method and note the areas currently monitored by all seeing cameras:

A5 Cricklewood Broadway southbound at Kara Way

Station Road, Edgware

West Hendon Broadway northbound at Cool Oak Lane.

High St, High Barnet, jct of St Albans Rd and jct with Wood St.

High Road, Finchley, near Sainsburys.

and more besides

You have been warned.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard