Greenacre Walks - The Queen's Highway - 13 October

Love - an apology

A lady made the mistake of parking on the grass verge where a few other cars had done the same. It wasn't a place that had previously known for being enforced but things can change. She paid the PCN at 50% but came to Mr Mustard as she was unhappy with how she, and her female colleagues, had been spoken to by the traffic warden ('CEO').

The complaint set out what had transpired that day in the words of the lady concerned.

When I was told there was an Enforcement Officer outside I quickly went out to talk to him. He had already put a ticket on my car and was in the process of issuing another on a different car. I asked him why I had been given a ticket and he replied, “You can’t park here, love.” I asked why I couldn’t park there and he just repeated, “You can’t park here, love.” I asked him but to call me “love” and could he answer my question. He then replied with something along the lines of, “Sorry darling, you can’t park here,” with a patronising emphasis on “darling”. I asked him again to not call me that and said, “If we can’t park here then where are the signs to say we can’t?” He said, “There doesn’t need to be signs, love. You can’t park here.”

At this point he was obviously doing this on purpose as he could see it was winding me up. A couple of other women there were now also telling him to stop using sexist language. He asked how he was being sexist and was laughing. He was obviously antagonising us and, by now as more people were arriving for work, was enjoying the show he was putting on.

A colleague told him he was being rude and sexist and he just laughed. He said in an extremely patronising and condescending way, “Well, what would you like me to call you then?” She said that Madam and Sir would be a more appropriate way to address people and he replied, “Well, MADAM, you can’t park here.” He then waved to everyone and walked up the road laughing.

I have never met such an arrogant, condescending little man as this before. But, what I don’t quite understand, is that I was told there was an Audi parked amongst the cars in that area but he didn’t put a ticket on it. A colleague (who’s ticket is one of the ones sent) told me that he skipped it, ticketed the other cars and then let the Audi driver drive off.

Mr Mustard then added in the terms of the complaint, as follows:

In summary, the traffic warden was rude, patronising, sexist, arrogant, unhelpful, partial, condescending, antagonistic, unprofessional and behaved in a way that is detrimental to the council's image. He is completely unsuited to his job.

An apology has now been received, although it took two reminders to get one:

Your complaint has been forwarded to me for reply, as I am one of the officers responsible for monitoring the parking enforcement contractor, NSL Ltd. I apologise for the delay in replying to you.

After reading your letter I requested a statement from CEO BT*** regarding his conversation with you.  In his statement he explained that he uses the word “love” daily and up until the incident nobody had been offended (as far as he was aware). He thought he was being polite. Since then, he has not used the word “love” whilst carrying out his duties, as he is now aware that it could be offensive or seen to be sexist. (Part of the problem is that the public don't complain enough so the council don't know what language is sued by traffic wardens. You rarely see a council officer shadowing a traffic warden as the provision of the service, and hence the supervision, is left to NSL)
He has apologised for his behaviour and explained he did not intend to be rude, patronising, sexist, arrogant, unhelpful, partial, condescending, antagonistic, or unprofessional.

I have spoken to the contract manager at NSL Ltd, as they employ the CEOs. I have advised him to remind all the CEOs that as front-line representatives of the Council we expect them to treat all motorists with courtesy whilst in pursuant of their duties.  We also expect motorists to treat them the same. BT*** has also been spoken to separately and reminded of his obligations. (The motorists involved were courteous despite the testing time and there is no need for this line in the apology as it is irrelevant. Having outsourced the service does not outsource the responsibility for council traffic wardens to NSL, the extra management layer does not excuse the council).

In relation to the Audi, BT*** explained that the vehicle “moved straight away” so he was not able to enforce it. (This is a pack of lies as the location was a cul-de-sac and the traffic warden had to walk past the Audi to ticket two other cars as a cursory inspection of the council's own evidence would have shown).

I’m sorry that you have found cause to complain. Please be rest assured that if a CEO has behaved inappropriately, we take it seriously and the CEO is dealt with accordingly.

Always good to get an apology. Any more complaints about that particular traffic warden, are not going to help him, he will simply have to be more polite in future. Please, if you are unhappy with how you are spoken to, send your complaint to parking.clientteam@barnet.gov.uk Make sure you also challenge the PCN which has to be to the email address on the PCN, or use the on line system, or write to the Sheffield PO Box (where the scanner sits).

It is easy for traffic wardens, just call people Sir or Madam.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Sign your rights away

Here is the side of view of some recent parking, the most left hand end is where the car which was given a PCN was parked. This is Golders Green Crescent.

From the end of the bay, this is the view of the sign; what sign? It has been engulfed by foliage. You can see how a motorist might have parked thinking there wasn't a restriction.

Now, from google street view, the scene, and you can see another bay to the right with a clear sign.

The hedge hadn't swallowed the sign at that point.

How can a traffic warden give out a PCN in such a situation? Sometimes by bending back the foliage and then taking a photograph. Not this time though, the sign is clear as a bell.

How can that be? Simple, the traffic warden photographed the sign from the next bay along and the white house is the clue in the background. Mr Mustard can hear you thinking; you are thinking that the sign for each bay can be different and you are correct, the sign within a bay applies to that bay alone.

Thus the traffic warden has been either a cheat or indiligent. It is helpful though as the traffic warden had to walk past the sign for the bay in which the car was parked to get to the one they photographed, well that excuses the motorist not seeing the proper, but hidden, sign.

Mr Mustard doesn't like injustice so he has filed a complaint. Let's see how long this PCN lives for. It would be fair to give the motorist £55 for this mistake, the same sum as they would have had to pay if the sign had been visible and they missed it.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Update: 24 September 2019. The motorist has received a letter cancelling the PCN.

Lack of logic

The guidance booklet is not a statement of the law

The is set out above. A motorist, let's call them Frank, parks with their blue badge on a one hour single yellow line. Provided that loading is not prohibited, notified by yellow marks across the kerb and a sign plate with times (except when there are two marks together which means 24 hours) a motorist can park for up to 3 hours on a single yellow line. The reason for the clock, or disc as it is properly known, is to enable a passing traffic warden to know when you parked in order to establish if you had been there for more than 3 hours. The clock has no function if the yellow line only operates for a single hour, that is very simple logic.

Along came a traffic warden, keen as anything to issue a PCN and duly did so because the clock, which wasn't needed, was set to the wrong time. That was mistake number 1.

Frank challenged, expecting logic to take over. It didn't and the above is part of the response received. That was mistake number 2 by Barnet Council.

Frank wasn't happy so off to his MP he went. The MP duly passed the query on to Barnet Council and clearly doesn't have much logic themselves, and meekly accepted the council's assurance that the council were correct and Frank was in the wrong. Here is part of the response.

 

A senior officer, one would expect, looks at queries from MPs. Well if they were senior they weren't much cop as they too got it wrong. Ironically the Statutory Instrument they quoted gave the correct answer about the situation. What a pity they didn't read it. Mistake number 3. 

At this point Frank contacted Mr Mustard who thought that the answers were not logical and so he carried out some research to confirm his thinking.

It doesn't help that the booklet you get with your blue badge overstates the law although it is safer to put your clock out every time you park so that you get in the bait and so that a zealously wrong traffic warden doesn't make you one of his victims

 

Mr Mustard wrote to the parking manager and all of a sudden some proper thought was applied to the situation. To save time Mr Mustard sent the manager the relevant section of the statutory instrument

To precis for you the above regulations say that you don't need a parking clock for restrictions which do not exceed 3 hours. It took two weeks but then the PCN was cancelled and a brief apology was given. No flowers, no chocolates, no bottle of wine though.

Frank was relieved and grateful and will, on Mr Mustard's advice, display their clock every time they park even though they don't need to.

Now you blue badge holders know and so you won't meekly pay up if any council makes the same mistake as Barnet did. Simply email mrmustard@zoho.com for free help.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Ealing Council - data hoarders

Monster storage

Mr Mustard has the useful habit of keeping an eye on every PCN which he has touched which is still, as far as he knows, live in a council's eyes. This can lead to him checking a PCN every 2 weeks for 3 years or more, and surprised though you may be at the thought, moribund PCNs do suddenly take on a new life sometimes. Recently Harrow Council, for example, suddenly having woken up sleeping PCNs from 2016 which they should have written off and started sending out Orders For Recovery, preparatory to instructing a bailiff. Pretty tough if you had moved 18 months ago, as being clamped will be the first thing you know.

Delay in processing a PCN should be fatal to a council's case if you can get it to the tribunal as this recent decision shows.

Mr Mustard has some 2016 PCNs from Ealing Council which he has been keeping an eye on. They had been to a bailiff whose behaviour towards a blue badge holder Mr Mustard had complained about. It is a rare council that does anything with a PCN after the bailiff has failed and having done nothing since 2017 Ealing Council should have at the least set the balance to zero, as they had abandoned chasing, or actually deleted the data in accordance with their stated policy. Mr Mustard thought he would find out how much old data they were keeping. Here is what he found out.

That is an awful lot of data and Mr Mustard cannot see that it is proportionate or necessary so he has challenged Ealing Council as below:

Let's see what sort of response arrives.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Traffic wardens not trained in blue badge abuse / fraud

Mr Mustard is fighting a PCN, and he has just started a case at the tribunal, where, the driver says, the traffic warden confiscated the blue badge because the holder, a juvenile, was not in the car. The motorist, his mum, says she was collecting him. Whilst Mr Mustard believes the motorist, he thought he would check the knowledge of the traffic warden and the training which enabled him to do his job properly. Thus, he asked Havering Council about the training of traffic wardens and was worried to receive this response:

Misuse of a blue badge is a fraud. Typical council semantics.

The removal of the badge caused extra difficulties for the young boy whose badge it was. Mr Mustard did get it returned pretty quickly by complaining to the Chief Executive of Havering who quickly delegated the task to a senior manager who arranged a same day interview of the driver, who was the holder's mother, and then gave the blue badge back to her, the driver on the day in question.

You can't blame the traffic warden for getting it wrong, as he hasn't been trained (although motorists are expected to digest without any error the Rights and Responsibilities guidance which runs to 34 pages) but he shouldn't be asked to exercise the powers of a blue badge fraud investigator (and make no mistake as soon as a badge is seized it is assumed that you are guilty) nor should he confiscate a badge, without being fully trained. It would be better if a traffic warden merely reported the suspicion of fraud to the blue badge investigation team.

Mr Mustard has further concerns about the traffic warden. This is part of his written report.

If it wasn't such a serious situation Mr Mustard would be smiling as he thinks of Allo Allo:
for "I was pissing by the door, and I thought I would drip in"

we have 'I was petroling on St Nicholas Avenue'

but this is no time for humour.

The other point Mr Mustard notes is that the traffic warden, who pulled up alongside the parked car which was on double yellows, asked the driver to move on before looking in the windscreen, where the blue badge was to be found. That speaks volumes about the attitude of traffic wardens. Anybody on a double yellow must be wrongly parked and yet tens of thousands of motorists in greater London have blue badges and the right to park for 3 hours on a double yellow (except where loading is banned, identified by yellow marks across the kerb).

The blue badge has been returned, then renewed just a month after the incident without any hesitation, no proceedings have been commenced or even threatened, but yet Havering Council want to force the motorist to the tribunal. The motorist won't have to attend, Mr Mustard will handle it. Will the council fight the tribunal Appeal or will they wisely throw in the towel and file a 'do not contest' form. Time will tell and Mr Mustard will let you know.

Mr Mustard is of course wondering which other London local authorities have untrained traffic wardens going about confiscating badges in an ignorant fashion. Best smarten your act up parking managers before Mr Mustard starts asking questions.

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.