Ticket machine wouldnt work.

[alienex]

I have had a notice of excess charge today for £50 or £30 if paid within 10 days for not displaying a ticket due to the machine not working. (when I tried)

 

Anyway I have noticed a lot of conversation about issue/contravene dates and although I cannot scan mine in to show, my ticket says:

 

The car park attendant noticed that at 9:55 hrs on 11/3/07...

 

Does that mean I have 10 days from 9:55 on 11/3/07, its a bit confusing?

 

Any help appreciated. Thanks

[patdavies]

If it is an Excess Charge Notice (ECN) the all the discussion about two dates is totally irrelevant to you.

 

The two dates are a requirement of Penalty Charge Notices (PCN) that are issued by Council Parking Attendants in a Decriminalised Parking Enforcement regime.

[Filthy Monkey]

Alienex, from the information you have supplied, it sounds like this is an 'invoice' issued by a private company. The aim of this type of ticket, and any follow up action, is to intimidate you into paying. As it falls under contract law and is not goverened by the Road Traffic Act, there is very little they can do to enforce it. Have a read through the rest of the site and you will find a wealth of information advising you on how to deal with this. Just don't, whatever you do, give these scumbags any money!!

[falcon185]

Hi alienex,

sounds like Filthy is right, if its a private car park run by a private company try sending them this letter.

 

Dear Sirs

 

Re: Vehicel Reg XXXXX

 

I have recieved your invoice dated XXXX reference xxxxxx.

 

Please advise on what basis that you feel that I have entered into any contract with either your company or the landlowner.

 

Yours faithfully

 

Hopefully that will be the last you hear from them ;-)

 

Bearing in mind you are not under any legal obligation to advise them of who the driver was at the time of the alleged contravention and the contract would be with the driver at the time, not the registered keeper

[alienex]

Hi and thanks for the advice.

 

The ECN is from my local county council so I am presuming its there property not a private company.

 

It mentions,

 

It is an offence under this order and section 35A(1) of the act of 1984, for the driver of a vehicle who has left the vehicle in a parking place to fail duly to pay the appropriate charge or excess charge or both as the case may be.

 

So really, if there wasn't a means to pay for the parking charge, how can they then impose an ECN?

[falcon185]

The car park attendant noticed that at 9:55 hrs on 11/3/07...

 

Does this mean you didnt receive a ticket on your car or handed to you at the time of the alleged offence? I believe the validity of an ECN is that it has to be placed on the vehicle or handed to the driver. Maybe someone can clear this up for me? But if that is the case then I would contest this. IMHO

[alienex]

No it says that on the ECN that was stuck to the side of my window. Now if we had done that with a ticket... yeah failure to display

 

Anyway my point is, I tried to purchase a parking ticket, the machine kept spitting my money out, valid UK coins and therfore I couldnt display a ticket. I didnt go there to get a free parking as I always carry coins in my car.

[dx100uk]

not being funny here, but have you contacted the council?

you cannot be the only one that had money refused by the machine?

a quick phone call or note might just dissolve the whole issue.

 

i bet they already know all about it.

 

 

dx100uk:)

[falcon185]

As dx says it might be worthwhile contacting the council, the problem with that is they might not be forth coming with any info as to whether the machine was functioning correctly or not on that particular day. They just want the money.

[Filthy Monkey]

It's an unusual one. I've never heard of councils only offering 10 days to pay the reduced fee. The standard seems to be 14...

[dx100uk]

not being funny here, but councils are not all that bad.

they are not out to make money this way.

call them, be polite, explain the situation, they have a duty to you to investigate your concerns & they must reply

 

unless a number is already given

call the main council number ask to be put through to somebody who deals with faulty parking meters and tickets.

get their name and dept, and explain away

you might be nicely suprised.

 

dx100uk;)

[patdavies]

The car park attendant noticed that at 9:55 hrs on 11/3/07...

 

Does this mean you didnt receive a ticket on your car or handed to you at the time of the alleged offence? I believe the validity of an ECN is that it has to be placed on the vehicle or handed to the driver. Maybe someone can clear this up for me? But if that is the case then I would contest this. IMHO

 

No, that's a PCN. The requirement is specifically in the RTA1991

[patdavies]

not being funny here, but councils are not all that bad.

they are not out to make money this way.

call them, be polite, explain the situation, they have a duty to you to investigate your concerns & they must reply

 

unless a number is already given

call the main council number ask to be put through to somebody who deals with faulty parking meters and tickets.

get their name and dept, and explain away

you might be nicely suprised.

 

dx100uk;)

 

Depends on what the enabling regulations say.

 

They may allow free parking in the event of machine failure, or they may suspend parking in the event

[Just Joe]

This happened to me some years ago... I arrived at the car park near the station as usual, tried to buy a ticket but the money just kept coming back out. Soon there was a little group of us trying the machine... but it just wouldn't take. So I put a note on my dashboard to say the machine wasn't working.

Came back later to find my car and quite a few others had been ticketed... the warden must have thought it was Christmas... which if I remember rightly it nearly was. A couple of us from that morning arrived on the same train and weren't very pleased.

Anyway I sent a letter explaining the situation and received a response from the council that they'd had no report of the machine being faulty and that I must pay.

Luckily, a few days later I met a few of the people I'd met that morning in the same car park, and they'd all said they'd got a similar response. So we all co-signed a letter to the council together with some of the people I'd seen again on my return journey, asking again for the tickets to be cancelled.

They contacted us individually, cancelling our tickets and making the excuse of "administration error".