Parking Tickets

[furnessvale]

A word to the wise about a nice little earner being operated by car park operator "Parking Eye".

The other day I went onto the multi story car park at Manchester Royal Infirmary now operated by Parking Eye. The first thing to note is that the entry and exit barriers are permanently open. Don't be fooled into thinking parking is free for some reason. The company uses ANPR cameras to record every vehicle in and out.

When you return to the car park you go to one of the several machines, punch in your reg no, pay the fee and leave. No problem.

Where things get difficult is that the machine uses predictive text. I had only entered 3 digits when the machine showed my full reg, presumably the only car on the car park carrying the first 3 digits. I did no more than pay the fee and obtain a receipt. I cannot recall if the receipt was automatic or whether I (fortunately) requested one.

Only when I got home did I look at the receipt and see that only the 3 digits I had entered were recorded.

As expected, a few days later I received a penalty charge for £70 through the post for non payment. I e mailed them back with a copy of the receipt, suggesting that their machine needs modifying one way or another.

After 24 hours I received notice that they were cancelling the charge "as a gesture of goodwill". Had I not kept the receipt, I wonder what their reaction would have been?

Note to self, read the small print at any car park carefully.

 

[DarloRich]

They appear on a regular basis in Private Eye

 

[thejuggler]

With ANPR system there is absolutely no need to enter any reg at a machine. The reg can be read on arrival and printed on the ticket. Insert ticket into pay machine, machine knows which reg is it is as its on the barcode. You pay, drive to barrier, ANPR reads reg, recognises payment has been made and barrier lifts.

Parking eye do it this way as they need the £70 to keep rolling in. By making it complicated some such as you get caught. You had evidence and they stopped chasing you for the money, thousands every week aren't so lucky and get chased all the way to Court. Many of them will pay the £70-100 as the threatening letters put the fear of God into people. Fighting a ticket can take months.

Whilst you have been successful I would write to the hospital PALS unit, explain what happened, that its a scandal and the system is not fit for purpose or user friendly as simpler ANPR systems are available which don't need reg details.

Its a national scandal, but them and many other private parking invoicing companies keep getting away with scamming the public.

 

[skyhigh]

Sounds similarly daft to the machines at what used to be my local station. Cameras recording number plates in and out, but it's pay and display. You go to the machine, it asks for the registration, shows you a photo of your car arriving and lets you pay. Once you've paid it shows a confirmation message... and then about 20 seconds later prints a ticket to put in your windscreen. I can understand how people might think they've paid and walk off leaving the ticket in the machine.

Same lesson applies, read the small print carefully!

 

[AM9]

Another irritation with modern car park ticketing systems is that when your registration is recorded, your ticket can only be used for that car. The local hospitals have charges of £4 for two hours, - sometimes that is the minimum. So when your appointment is very short or even cancelled on arrival, you are leaving with aticket that has, say, 1.5 hours validity remaining. It used to be acceptable to hand the ticket to any arriving driver who could then avoid/reduce their parking costs. After all, there would be no more spaces used. Now, however much time is unused, nobody can benefit from it. Cynical planning?

 

[skyhigh]

Another irritation with modern car park ticketing systems is that when your registration is recorded, your ticket can only be used for that car. The local hospitals have charges of £4 for two hours, - sometimes that is the minimum. So when your appointment is very short or even cancelled on arrival, you are leaving with aticket that has, say, 1.5 hours validity remaining. It used to be acceptable to hand the ticket to any arriving driver who could then avoid/reduce their parking costs. After all, there would be no more spaces used. Now, however much time is unused, nobody can benefit from it. Cynical planning?

To be fair, I remember most car parks had the condition that tickets weren't transferable. There wasn't much that could be done to enforce that however!

 

[tony_mac]

Cynical planning?

or prevention of fraud?

(I have occasionally confused people by turning down the offer of a partially used ticket - I prefer to do things correctly. You can make the same argument about partially used train tickets, travelcards, etc.)

 

[Bletchleyite]

Another irritation with modern car park ticketing systems is that when your registration is recorded, your ticket can only be used for that car. The local hospitals have charges of £4 for two hours, - sometimes that is the minimum. So when your appointment is very short or even cancelled on arrival, you are leaving with aticket that has, say, 1.5 hours validity remaining. It used to be acceptable to hand the ticket to any arriving driver who could then avoid/reduce their parking costs. After all, there would be no more spaces used. Now, however much time is unused, nobody can benefit from it. Cynical planning?

With pay on exit/camera enforcement like this, there's no need for there to be spare time - simply charge per block of 10 minutes or thereabouts (with a specified amount of time after payment to exit the car park).

Even MK Pay and Display parking is charged in 15 minute blocks.

 

[ainsworth74]

They appear on a regular basis in Private Eye

Not to be confused with Parking Eye a provider of a parking charges

 

[Bletchleyite]

To some extent people as a whole bring parking enforcement companies on themselves, just like they do barriers, Penalty Fares and prosecutions - were they honest, these organisations would make no money and would simply go away.

 

[DarloRich]

Not to be confused with Parking Eye a provider of a parking charges

I wonder if Private Eye appears in the Parking Eye offices?

 

[tony_mac]

To some extent people as a whole bring parking enforcement companies on themselves, just like they do barriers, Penalty Fares and prosecutions - were they honest, these organisations would make no money and would simply go away.

Only to some extent. There are plenty of examples of parking 'companies' deliberately trying to entrap people (particularly when they were allowed to clamp people and charge ridiculous release fees)

 

[Bletchleyite]

Only to some extent. There are plenty of examples of parking 'companies' deliberately trying to entrap people (particularly when they were allowed to clamp people and charge ridiculous release fees)

True. There is a case of that locally, where a seemingly empty, abandoned car park with spaces marked out in it has a fairly hidden (but precisely visible/big enough to be legal) "no parking" notice. Essentially entrapment. I've never been caught by it but I know people who have; if they just wanted to stop parking there they'd whack a concrete block across the entrance, whereas what they do is leave it because it's a money making exercise due to the limited parking for the takeaways opposite. I'm convinced it's one of the local residents doing the booking for them.

 

[Warwick]

Another irritation with modern car park ticketing systems is that when your registration is recorded, your ticket can only be used for that car. The local hospitals have charges of £4 for two hours, - sometimes that is the minimum. So when your appointment is very short or even cancelled on arrival, you are leaving with aticket that has, say, 1.5 hours validity remaining. It used to be acceptable to hand the ticket to any arriving driver who could then avoid/reduce their parking costs. After all, there would be no more spaces used. Now, however much time is unused, nobody can benefit from it. Cynical planning?

I must remember that when I buy a train ticket to somewhere but decide not to go and give it to my neighbour who is going.
No railcard involved, no discount given, just a straight ticket. No loss of revenue for the train company. I can hear the ticket jobsworths muttering now.

 

[Busaholic]

Another irritation with modern car park ticketing systems is that when your registration is recorded, your ticket can only be used for that car. The local hospitals have charges of £4 for two hours, - sometimes that is the minimum. So when your appointment is very short or even cancelled on arrival, you are leaving with aticket that has, say, 1.5 hours validity remaining. It used to be acceptable to hand the ticket to any arriving driver who could then avoid/reduce their parking costs. After all, there would be no more spaces used. Now, however much time is unused, nobody can benefit from it. Cynical planning?

One of the hospitals I regularly drive to is a smaller one, charges £1 per hour and doesn't ask for a reg. I was quite surprised a few months ago when I got to the machine and the guy who (occasionally) monitors it handed me a free ticket for two hours! (an hour more than I needed, actually). I guess someone had left it in the machine inadvertently.

 

[MotCO]

or prevention of fraud?

(I have occasionally confused people by turning down the offer of a partially used ticket - I prefer to do things correctly. You can make the same argument about partially used train tickets, travelcards, etc.)

So as not to upset the donor, I take their ticket, then when they're out of sight, buy the correct ticket.

 

[najaB]

I must remember that when I buy a train ticket to somewhere but decide not to go and give it to my neighbour who is going.

That's actually fine as the ticket has (in effect) been bought on behalf of someone else. As long as you aren't reselling it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That's actually fine as the ticket has (in effect) been bought on behalf of someone else. As long as you aren't reselling it.

If this *actually* bothered the railway that much, they'd put names on tickets as just about every other long distance mode of public transport does.

 

[najaB]

If this *actually* bothered the railway that much, they'd put names on tickets as just about every other long distance mode of public transport does.

To be fair, that's because aeroplanes and buses don't allow standing - if reservations are compulsory then you might as well put a name to it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

To be fair, that's because aeroplanes and buses don't allow standing - if reservations are compulsory then you might as well put a name to it.

Why? The two things are completely unconnected. Names on tickets are to prevent or facilitate a fee for transfer (and, in the case of airlines, for some measure of pre-checking of security and/or immigration credentials in some countries). Compulsory reservations just mean you have to have one - on a TGV you don't have a name on your ticket, and it used to be the case that DB AG and NS Internationaal could issue un-named Eurostar tickets, I've had a few of those.

 

[najaB]

Why? The two things are completely unconnected.

I didn't say they were connected. I said that since you're going to be printing/creating a reservation and, in the case of advance purchase you'll likely have a name then you might as well combine the two.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

True. There is a case of that locally, where a seemingly empty, abandoned car park with spaces marked out in it has a fairly hidden (but precisely visible/big enough to be legal) "no parking" notice. Essentially entrapment. I've never been caught by it but I know people who have; if they just wanted to stop parking there they'd whack a concrete block across the entrance, whereas what they do is leave it because it's a money making exercise due to the limited parking for the takeaways opposite. I'm convinced it's one of the local residents doing the booking for them.

Whoever put up that sign would have a right old time trying to enforce such a 'contract' (unless it is indeed a local authority controlled car park)! The "Parking Charges" ParkingEye and the like demand are based on a supposedly freely-entered contract between the driver and the parking company. For there to be a contract, there must be consideration on both sides. If the sign merely says 'No Parking', then what exactly is being offered - the right not to park??

Claims for "Parking Charges" on this basis have been thrown out of Court plenty of times before. In fact most "Parking Charges" can be beaten by playing the parking companies at their own game and nailing them for, almost inevitably, failing to abide by the technical and procedural requirements of Schedule 4 the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. The only big company known for tending to abide by the requirements is ParkingEye!