private charge notice

[danst96]

Ouch!

I think with a swift reply to the charge and maybe a little white lie you could have got away with that one. Something along the lines of the stop being an emergency?

A friend was fined for being in a car park for 10 minutes longer than the specified time, they had broken down. Luckily they had the foresight to take pictures of the breakdown van etc so when the fine came they challenged it. At first I think the company refused but when pushed that my friend was happy to go to court they backed down quite rightly.

Yes in hindsight i should have argued with it more but at the time i was bogged down with other things and i kept forgetting i had the fine even. Oh well live and learn. The PCN guys are scum IMO, money making racket and nothing else.

Its along the same line as police camera vans. Privately contracted companies (not the police) out to make a quick buck only. They do not offer anything in terms of keeping speed down and they are often on high speed roads in concealed spots.

 

[Blackswanwood]

they are often on high speed roads in concealed spots.

aka accident blackspots

 

[marcros]

Yes in hindsight i should have argued with it more but at the time i was bogged down with other things and i kept forgetting i had the fine even. Oh well live and learn. The PCN guys are scum IMO, money making racket and nothing else.

Its along the same line as police camera vans. Privately contracted companies (not the police) out to make a quick buck only. They do not offer anything in terms of keeping speed down and they are often on high speed roads in concealed spots.

how else can a private landowner prevent people from using their land as a car park, and enforce signs that parking is not allowed? It would be chaos in every town centre.

I admit that it is annoying to get a ticket, but they all start from either breaking a rule or somebody's interpretation that that was the case `eg a little bit over the white line).

 

[danst96]

aka accident blackspots

where they park in the areas around where I am they are not accident spots. Excellent revenue making spots though. I have nothing against police enforcing the speed limit, I am all for it, I witnessed myself a terrible accident where a young woman was nearly killed but I have an issue where they are pursuing something thats largely ineffective and is just to increase the coffers. The fact its done by a private company....

 

[danst96]

how else can a private landowner prevent people from using their land as a car park, and enforce signs that parking is not allowed? It would be chaos in every town centre.

I admit that it is annoying to get a ticket, but they all start from either breaking a rule or somebody's interpretation that that was the case `eg a little bit over the white line).

I agree, in this case it was not very clear, there was some signs that i found out afterwards but i didnt notice them at the time. it was in the midlands while i was travelling for business so was not familiar with the area. It was a pub carpark behind a maccers where i literally stopped for 10 minutes to eat the food as the mcdonalds car park was completely overflowing. Another other option was eat while driving.... I think not.

 

[marcros]

I agree, in this case it was not very clear, there was some signs that i found out afterwards but i didnt notice them at the time. it was in the midlands while i was travelling for business so was not familiar with the area. It was a pub carpark behind a maccers where i literally stopped for 10 minutes to eat the food as the mcdonalds car park was completely overflowing. Another other option was eat while driving.... I think not.

I do agree with that in many instances there is enough signage to be legal (just) but it is clearly a money making exercise and the signage is deliberately poor.

if the aim is to prevent parking, a big sign saying no parking seems obvious to me. How can a person comply with an instruction that they don't know about.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Might I add, I was in the no park zone for a total of 10 minutes (as long as it takes to eat a McDonalds burger). Cost me £220.

You have no teeth?

 

[Rorschach]

aka accident blackspots

They park in a location near where I live, there has never been an accident there even before sped cameras etc existed. What there is though is a downhill stretch that causes people to naturally speed up and there is a handy out of the way spot that the camera van can park where it is just out of view until it's too late. You come down the hill at 30, gravity naturally increases your speed and just at the point where you would be going the fastest the camera van sits waiting. They also point in both directions because anyone coming up the hill would add a little acceleration to help them get up it as it's quite steep and long.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

aka accident blackspots

There are cameras on an open fast road near me - they cause accidents where there were few as people now slam their brakes on approaching them. No one seems to have the will to remove them - they're earners.

 

[danst96]

You have no teeth?

got teeth but i had to sell a kidney

 

[Rorschach]

There are cameras on an open fast road near me - they cause accidents where there were few as people now slam their brakes on approaching them. No one seems to have the will to remove them - they're earners.

A camera near a school here was removed after a child was killed by someone paying more attention to their speedo than the road and rolled onto the pavement. It wasn't an official removal for that reason of course, they would never admit that cameras can cause accidents, instead the local residents took matters into their own hands and put it out of service in a variety of interesting ways. Repair costs soon overtook revenue income.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

20 mph limits near schools here, children crossing between parked cars and drivers with their eyes on their speedos.

 

[bluenose]

There are cameras on an open fast road near me - they cause accidents where there were few as people now slam their brakes on approaching them. No one seems to have the will to remove them - they're earners.

Observation is the name of the game Phil, of all surroundings and of vehicles immediately in font and of some distance ahead too

 

[Ian down london way]

I wondered about that a few years ago when in the UK and I drove a vehicle that I think would fall through the net. The owner of the vehicle had died but probate had not yet been granted so the new owner/keeper of the vehicle was unknown. The most likely new owner/keeper was the spouse of the deceased, someone who did not hold and had never held a driving licence. The insurance policy on the vehicle was in the name "The estate of ....". The registration document was still in the name of the deceased. What would have happened if I, or anyone else who drove the vehicle at that time, had got a speeding fine, parking fine, bus lane fine or whatever? Who would have been asked to name the driver? Who could be held responsible if the driver could not be identified? In a way it is a shame tht nobody driving the car received any penalties as it would have been interesting to see how it played out.

Maybe the executor who would have responsibility for the assets until such time as they are passed on. The executor probably has responsibility for allowing an asset of the estate to be used.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Observation is the name of the game Phil, of all surroundings and of vehicles immediately in font and of some distance ahead too

Being avoidable doesn't seem to stop the accidents. Very few accidents aren't avoidable.

 

[Rorschach]

20 mph limits near schools here, children crossing between parked cars and drivers with their eyes on their speedos.

Yeah it's a 20mph limit but it's on another steep, long hill. After the camera was removed they put in speed bumps which although I also dislike them, probably did a far better job than the camera and safer for too as you don't have to worry about your speedo in the same way.

 

[artie]

An article in the telegraph recently, suggested there could be 90,000 ringers on UK roads.

So just because they have a pic of a car the same model , colour and registration as yours doesn't mean it's you.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Yes, we got a parking ticket while our car was parked for the day outside my wife's workplace in Truro. The ticket came from Worthing.

 

[Lons]

A camera van is very regularly parked on the edge of the local town and is very lucrative for similar reasons to examples already posted, last public info figures was several hundred times over a 5 year period, there's never been a single serious accident on that stretch in more than 30 years however the same van also covers the 60 mile stretch of busy A road to the Scottish borders where there are regular very serious sometimes fatal accidents and the deployment over the same period was 27 times 14 of which were in a village with downhill stretch to the 30mph signs, there has never been an accident there either apparently.
The revenues from many of these vans are huge and in many cases imo have little to do with safety and while I have no sympathy for people who deliberately speed I don't much like entrapment either.

Anyone thinking it's bad in the UK, and it is , needs to spend some time in Italy where there are deliberate schemes to catch innocent drivers even in free public car parks, I got conned in Lucca after following direct advice from the information office 500 yards from the park, long story and on a different occasion south of Garda where I bought and displayed a ticket, got a summons 8 months later of E90 for not having a ticket, I still had it among the docs so sent a copy with a snotty letter to the mayor telling him to get stuffed and come and arrest me if he liked, I couldn't however get out of the £30 admin charge from the hire company as they took it from my credit card and it was in the small print of the contract.

 

[danst96]

A camera van is very regularly parked on the edge of the local town and is very lucrative for similar reasons to examples already posted, last public info figures was several hundred times over a 5 year period, there's never been a single serious accident on that stretch in more than 30 years however the same van also covers the 60 mile stretch of busy A road to the Scottish borders where there are regular very serious sometimes fatal accidents and the deployment over the same period was 27 times 14 of which were in a village with downhill stretch to the 30mph signs, there has never been an accident there either apparently.
The revenues from many of these vans are huge and in many cases imo have little to do with safety and while I have no sympathy for people who deliberately speed I don't much like entrapment either.

Anyone thinking it's bad in the UK, and it is , needs to spend some time in Italy where there are deliberate schemes to catch innocent drivers even in free public car parks, I got conned in Lucca after following direct advice from the information office 500 yards from the park, long story and on a different occasion south of Garda where I bought and displayed a ticket, got a summons 8 months later of E90 for not having a ticket, I still had it among the docs so sent a copy with a snotty letter to the mayor telling him to get stuffed and come and arrest me if he liked, I couldn't however get out of the £30 admin charge from the hire company as they took it from my credit card and it was in the small print of the contract.

overseas tickets are a nightmare. Its pretty hard to spot cameras in other countries and many such as The Netherlands and Germany its almost impossible to tell speed limit changes. I would suggest not ignoring speeding tickets from The Netherlands or Germany. I used to travel (pre covid) around twice a week to different European countries for business, mostly to Holland, Germany, Italy and France and I got nailed on several occasions speeding unintentionally. I tried ignoring the Dutch ones along the lines of i couldnt understand the letter as it was in Dutch but this was a mistake because eventually i got detained at the border when i arrived. They were very decent though, my flight had been delayed and i was running late and i said i would sort in the evening on my return flight so they let me in and and i sorted that evening when i flew back to the UK.