Challenging a parking ticket - advice please

[Rachael]

So, about a month ago I parked in a Lewisham car park. I tried to get a ticket from the pay-and-display machine, but half way through putting the money in, the machine spat the coins back out and cancelled the transaction. I tried about ten times, but always with the same result.

This happened to me before, about a year ago. There happened to be a parking enforcement agent present at the time and he told me to put a note in my car and that would be okay. So this time I did the same - wrote a note with the date, time and error message received, and went to catch my train.

Surprise, surprise, a few hours later, I come back to a penalty notice. Fair enough, I thought, the officer may have thought I was just chancing it. I contested the notice, citing the error message and previous advice from the parking enforcement officer.

Today I got a letter back from Lewisham saying there were no reported faults on that machine for that day, so they are enforcing the notice. So what do I do now? I know there was a fault, but it's my word against theirs. I want to contest it further, but what grounds to I have? Do you think Lewisham really checked the machine fault logs, or are they just blagging it, hoping I won't take it any further?

[Eagle]

With regret you are probably wasting your time taking on LBC with this.

[Rachael]

I suspect you are right, Eagle, but I also think that is what they are banking on. How many people get a parking notice cancelled on first appeal? I've given in before on a ticket I knew was wrong, because if I contest it again and still fail, the fine is double. This time I feel like saying 'sod it' and wasting their time as well as mine, just on principle.

[JRobinson]

sheesh, that's terrible advice from Eagle.
You had advice from a Civil Enforcement Officer, and you followed it. Write back and complain, ring them up, and ask to speak to someone as high up in 'Parking' as possible. Explain the situation, go in and speak to them. Threaten to take it to small claims court or something.
If you make no noise, they'll keep badgering you till you give in and pay. If you make enough noise, they'll give in and let you off.

Just because there was no error log, it doesn't mean that there wasn't a fault with the machine.

[michael]

The letter from Lewisham should include details of how to appeal.
Given you can provide an error message given by the machine, I think you stand a good chance of your word being accepted. Can Lewisham prove that they would have a record of the fault if this error was given - I assume not otherwise somebody would be lying.
I doubt that a local authority would spend the time and effort to take this beyond their own internal appeal. Certainly some boroughs will almost never bother, but I don't know if Lewisham is one of them.

[Rachael]

I have to wait until I get the official Notice to Owner to appeal. Which I think I will do.

Oh, and the CEO took a photo of my car that very carefully makes sure there is glare on the screen just where my note is posted. For all they know, that blurry square of white carefully tucked into the little clip for holding tickets (gotta love Volvo for their attention to detail) is in fact a valid ticket.

[bensonby]

I appreciate it's probably a bit late now: but best practice would be to get the details of the parking warden or, even better, to get something in writing from him. That way you can "prove" that you have been given permission to park there.

[Rachael]

That would have been a good idea, bensonby. However, the advice I was given was on a separate occasion.

[Sydenham]

Its a balance. My experience is that challenging tickets works but you have to follow the procedure to the letter and keep it unemotional and factual. often it means going to the final appeals meeting in person. You have to weigh up the time you're spending on this, the possible payment of full fare (against I think a 50% "discount" if you just pay up) and general hassle. From what O understand from statistics a very large number of tickts are overturned on appeal.

Regards, James.

[mosy]

When I challenged a ticket, luckily in person, the appeals officer read the council's rejection of my appleal and was about to rubber stamp it. Luckily I could present evidence (and make the officer read it!) to say how wrong the council's rejection of my appeal was. It cost money, which I did get back at cost - I only claimed out of pocket costs, not time etc - and my appeal was upheld so no fine payable.

If you have evidence and it's a point of principle (mine was), then go for it, if you don't have any evidence on your side that you can show to disprove the evidence against you, then deep breath first. You mention an error message, but I guess they could say you'd got it off the internet or whatever. It's very hard to prove what you can't prove if people don't believe you, even on appeal.

Mine wasn't an appeal against Lewisham council by the way. One thing that staggered me during my research was that a borough in North London accepted that people had been wrongly fined yet legal advice said they didn't have to pay fines back.

You can tell it was a sore point with me. Like I said, I did have disputing evidence though.