You say the money was taken direct from your bank account? If so, simple. Speak to your bank and demand (not request) the money is returned as it was taken in error. The bank is obliged to return your money and if One Call feel you owe them something they will have to send you a bill. If you don't pay it (and I'm sure you wont), their only legal course of action is a county court small claims claim where they will get stuffed by your evidence.

For a small dent/paint damage that you describe my local bodyshop would charge between £50-80 to repair to a high standard. Leaving the damage the way it is opens you up to a total re-negociation of the trade-in value and, generally speaking, the new car garage would claim the repair costs will be far higher than this quote and knock if off your value. I would seriously look into speaking a small local independant body shop who could turn your car around probably same day.

As far as I'm aware, the clutch would not be an item that would be checked within a "normal" service ther than if you had brought it to the garage's attention as a concern you had, or there was some very obvious slippage or similar that they noticed while driving it around the workshop. If you have been driving it with no concern prior to service, and driven all teh way to Paris (and other normal journeys) then this would suggest there was no long term problem with it so I don't think you have any recourse against the service garage. What "other faults" have you now found and would these be things that you could have reasonably expected the servicing/MOT garage to find?

Unfortunately (or probably by design if you are being cynical) there are 2 seperate offences here. The first one, which you dealt with, was failing to tax the car on time. The second, for which you were towed, is keeping an untaxed vehicle on the road. They are not directly related as, although you couldn't commit the second without the first being true, you can in fact commit the first without the second being true. i.e. you may have failed to tax the car but had it parked on your private drive. 1st offence is valid, 2nd isn't.

1 ignore 2 ignore some more 3 return to 1

Please re-read their letter. I am sure you will find it DOESN'T say "this WILL go to court", it will say some hairy-fairy waffle about "we MAY consider referring this to litigation etc etc"

and yet that is the one and only post you've ever felt the need to put on CAG. humm

please post the outcome of this advise as we will find it interesting I'm sure.

Stuart Heskell couldn't have written that post better himself. I wonder if he did.

A clutch is a wearable part so I doubt very much whether you will have any joy using either SOGA or warranty claim for this. 28,000 miles is not a massive amount of mileage for a clutch. I think 50,000 is more like most manufacturers would expect (but not guarantee). But equally 28,000 is not ridiculously low either to claim faulty. As a driving instructor I know we are always on a hiding-to-nothing ever trying to claim on such an item coz they always just say it must be the way the learners handle the clutch!

..

Well they go to great lengths to bring your attention to the Blue Badge users handbook, even quoting interesting relevant (in their scewed view) paragraphs about how to use it. However, they inadvertantly forget to mention the the booklet also clearly states that the Blue Badge scheme DOES NOT OPERATE ON PRIVATE LAND!!. Bit of an oversight that init!

£1.30 ltr for diesel? surely not. That sounds more like a petrol price to me.

I think what they would also be able to produce, if you disputed the offence, would be the fault log for the lights from the highway authority showing there was no faults reported for a reasonable length of time before or after your incident, and also the documented timings of how the lights are sequenced to switch. eg the settings will show exactly that your amber was on for 2.1 seconds then showed red and the light where the police car was showed red for a further 0.8 seconds, then showed red&amber for 1.2 seconds before switching to green.

If that is the only sign provided I would challenge it on the basis of "inadequate signage". By definition that sign means "no right turn AHEAD". If they place the sign physically after the point at which you would have turned, then it can no longer mean AHEAD as you have passed the junction by then!

I doubt very much that anyone will believe your claim that both lights were showing green at the same time!! Depending on the speed of the road, the time delay between yours switching to red and the other light switching to green can be quite substancial. i.e. the greater the road speed limit the longer the lights tend to overlap for safety. showing both RED, but never both GREEN. Also, you claim it would be "indirect" evidence, however, at the majority of these type of roadabout traffic lights, it is perfectly possible for the police officer to have been able to see one or more of the lights that are positioned for you and for him to see your light change to amber then red, before his changed to red/amber then green. Indeed as a driving instructor we actively encourage pupils to glance an eye at the "other driver's light" as it increases their "prep time" in anticipating their light changing to green. In my experience, far too many drivers treat the amber light (and even a second or 2 of the red) as a licence to jump the lights especially at these light controlled roundabout systems. In my view the road planners are too quick at using these systems when they are not necessary which aggrivates us all. eg a system near me claims to be "part time" lights yet are on between 6am and 10pm 7 days a week which most of us would pretty much class as full time! They are even on at 2 o'clock on a Sunday afternoon when there is bot all traffic going through that roundabout. However, although I think they are unnecessary at certain times, that doesn't mean I can ignore them as I choose, as that is downright dangerous especially if the car coming from the direction of the police car also "over-anticipated" the fact his light was about to go green. Remember the good old "amber-gambler" adverts they used to run on tele?

I agree with Homer67 in this situation. When first writing to the registered Keeper of the car, the PPC can only ask that they inform them who was the driver on the day in question. If you authorise your company to release your name and address to the PPC, they have fulfilled their obligation and all future letters should be addressed to you for you to ignore.

... which I suspect constitutes about 99% of the victims of this tax! It was never intended to victimise generally law abiding motorists but has become that to keep the cash cow flowing. When a vehicle is on SORN I believe you should receive a tax reminder after 12 months to tax or SORN again as we all do each year when tax disk is running out. But as ever, the DVLA usually claim they don't have to sned this reminder, but just do it as a courtesy. Then when they don't send one, and the motorist has nothing to prompt them (particularly on a SORN as there is no disk in their car window that they are driving to remind them) they fine you!

:rofl: This is a PPC. They have no such thing as "better nature" and they don't have an appeals procedure.

Why would the DVLA know who is insured to sdrive it and what relevance would that be to their fine?

I am not sure there is any legal way out of the situation because, technically, you are guilty. Once again the government have introduced a law that does nothing to address the purpose for which it was written (ie getting uninsured drivers off teh road) but have simply created a whole new cash cow of screwing "innocent" motorists who have failed to fully understand the new law but never intended driving such a vehicle on the public road. These fines go against the spirit of the law that was written just as the SORN fines step outside their remit too.

Generally I think it depends on if the council could "reasonably" have been expected to know about the pothole. eg if you are aware that someone (or you) had previously advised the council about the state of that section of road, then you could expect that they take repair action. If the pothole appeared over night last night and you drove through it this morning, then it would be unreasonable for them to have "fixed" a road that they didn't even know was damaged. Which catergory do you think your pothole falls into (pun*)?

which is the high quality public service that is being lost? and how will there be more tax evasion than before? They can't catch the real tax evaders but simply dole out easy fines to generally "innocent" motorists who have misunderstood some complex law that catches them out!!

Can you be more specific about what you claim you sent to the DVLA please. There is no "slip" that you should have sent to the DVLA. You should have given the V5C/2 to the new keeper which is the green section 10 from the V5C and sent the ENTIRE REMAINING DOCUMENT, specifically sections 1 through 8 to the DVLA. Is this what you did?

I am with seanamarts on this. I see no relevance in you having to inform the insurance company it is impounded nor that the police need to check. You will have insured it from a given date/time and it matters not what the current location of teh car is as far as I can see.