lambeth zealout wardens

[Huggers]

parked in road next to ruskin park with proper paid parking voucher from machine displayed inside windscreen. It is an extraordinarily windy day.

Lambeth parking have just given me a parking ticket after the tailwind of hurricane Katia blew my parking voucher off from inside my windscreen, through closed windows, and onto the seat where the warden photographed it. He was waiting by his bike. I was well inside my paid for time. How do I deal with this? advice please.

[DJKillaQueen]

Sounds as though it possibly blew off from air passing through vents from under the engine. I'd write to them and tell them you have a valid paid parking voucher covering the time during which the penalty notice was served, that the warden could see this, but issued the ticket anyway and ask what kind of common sense their wardens have! If they persist...go to court...can't see any magistrate ruling in their favour tbh (and they will know this). If they won't back down...contact Britain's biggest selling newspapaer 'The Sun'....they love a story like this and embarrass the heck out of them.

[Huggers]

thanks DJ, should i send them the voucher or will it 'disappear.'

my friend called the warden a bad word.

[Huggers]

eh duplicated myself then

[DJKillaQueen]

No don't send them the original receipt.....send them a photocopy. If they need to see the real item take it to them in person, let them photocopy it, and take it back afterwards. These guys are trying to fine you even though you paid for parking....I wouldn't trust them with an original anything!

And just edited to add, as anyone who has ever appealed a parking ticket will tell you, the process is made deliberately difficult imo to discourage any but the most determined from following it through.

[Marmora Man]

Stick with it - I appealed to a different but equally frustrating and vexatious traffic fine. Eventually, having pursued all avenues of appeal the council gave way 2 days before me appearing in person before an independent appeals tribunal.

It is as DJKQ says - they make it deliberately difficult, time consuming and boring to pursue the appeal - but it does feel good when the righteous win.

[Salsaboy]

Be careful. If the face of the ticket/voucher is not on display they are quite entitled to fine you. Read the wording on the ticket/voucher/machine.

Also if you have more than one ticket on display they will also give you a fine as 'it is not their job to look for a valid ticket'.

[DJKillaQueen]

The only thing a migistrate will care about though is if the parking was paid for....and given that the ticket had been original correctly displayed but blown off the dashboard, I would be very suprised if the council had a case. As MM's example shows, they will leave it till the last minute but they won't want to go to court with this one.

[Huggers]

can we be responsible for freak weather?should we penalised for it. DJKQ is right, we paid for the parking. For all we know the warden may have tapped the window till the voucher was displaced. Lambeth do not use adhesive ones so they are easily moved.

[DJKillaQueen]

It's entirely possible that a gush of strong wind came up through the air heating/ conditioning vents on the dashboard. When you turn on the air conditioning in your car it sucks in air from under the engine. If you leave the AC in on position when you turn the engine off (as most of us do) the the vent remains open. I'm sure this is what happened and Lambeth will have to accept that.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Sorry Huggers, but this is too good to pass up.

Anyone else think that the Lambeth Parking Warden must belong to the People's Front of Judea?

[Loz]

SPLITTERS!!!

[Huggers]

thanks all! my car is so ancient it doesnt actually have air conditioning but it does have a couple of slits in the windscreen facia shelf bit. I have used all your arguments in my appeal with copies of voucher and penalty notice. I have offered to provide originals 'when I go to court'. I do wish my friend I was visiting hadnt rushed out and called him a rude lady part word. Its just she says lots of her visitors have had fines even when they have bought vouchers for various obscure technicalities.

[DJKillaQueen]

Your car does have heating though right? It's the same thing....vents that air is sucked through and warmed by the engine.

Go get'em and good luck!

[Pugwash]

My work colleague and I both got parking tickets in Camberwell, outside our work. As essential car users we have 'All Southwark' permits which allow us to park in most resident parking bays in the borough. Both permits were valid, another colleague took photos of the permits in the cars and we sent these to the Parking Shop with copies of the permits. Tickets were withdrawn as we found out that the warden did not know the code for 'all southwark' and thought it related to a specific street only.

[mynamehere]

Ticket question: a friend was fined for turning onto Rye Lane as the 63 does from the parking garage, past Primark south past the Multiplex cinema and then left off Rye Lane. Is there something illegal about that trip?

[Huggers]

Victory! Thank you for all your advice - I used most of it in my appeal letter and WON! The ticket has been waived! Well done East Dulwich Forum! The faceless beauracracy of Lambeth parking could not withstand your logic!

[computedshorty]

lambeth zealout wardens

Your heading whether intentional or not is so appropreate, of a Zealouse Lout.

[ianr]

You were possibly lucky the ticket ended face up and in a still obvious place. On the PATAS key cases page, the only determination listed under 'Fluttering tickets' includes two cases in each of which the local regulations were held to apply strict liability on the motorist to display tickets as specified. The closer of the two is Carr (1960207612): pay-and-display ticket left on windscreen; ticket fell face down onto dashboard so that details were invisible; appeal dismissed.

[Huggers]

ah but the ticket landed face down! But as supporting evidence I was able to send them a meteogical link to a high wind warning posted that very day - it was Hurricane Katia day- and the winds were very high. It was a freak occurance with wind displacing voucher from windscreen. And they knew I would go to court too.

The displacement of the voucher was an act of nature we could not forsee. Am I expected, having parked my car and paid for the voucher, and correctly displayed it, to return to the car every five minutes to inspect whether such an occurance has in fact occurred? Is the fine for not paying/trying to cheat Lambeth or is the fine for failing to display even when you started off displaying?

[RosieH]

Huggers, I don't understand what you're so up in arms about. Are you expected, having parked your car and paid for the voucher, and correctly displayed it, to return to the car every five minutes to inspect whether such an occurance has in fact occurred?

As you say the ticket was face down and on the seat. Is the warden expected to use x-ray vision to read the reverse of any piece of paper he sees on a car seat on the offchance it could be a parking voucher and that it bears the correct time?

You suggest he may have deliberately knocked it off the windscreen (rather invalidating your hurricane rationale) and your friend called him a cunt.

He was doing his job. Turns out on this occasion you did have a valid ticket, and on appeal the fine was dropped. But how on earth was he supposed to know that? I'll never understand why otherwise rational and lovely people get so mental about parking wardens.

[ianr]

> Is the fine for not paying/trying to cheat Lambeth or is the fine for failing to display even when you started off displaying?

From the determination I referred to:

"In these cases, there are a number of factual issues that I will have to determine. But the

issue of principle that I have to consider is, to what extent can vehicle owners be liable for

penalties which, after they have properly paid for parking time, arise from matters entirely

outside their control?" (p2)

.....

"Does Section 46 give an authority the power to provide by regulation for the display of a pay

and display voucher (and for the manner of display), and for the forbidding of parking at any

time at a meter when that meter is showing out of order, so that, irrespective of fault, the

person concerned may be liable for a criminal penalty?

"As none of the specific provisions appears to be relevant, the Councils are forced to rely upon

the general words of Section 46. Section 46 is not, of course, as specific in its enabling

provisions as Section 35. However, certainly with regard to the display of a pay and display

voucher, there can be no reason of public policy as to why such regulations ought not to be

made in respect of on-street parking: because, as I have indicated above, such regulations

can clearly be made in respect of off-street parking pursuant to Section 35, and there is no

difference in principle between off- and on-street parking in this regard. Further, all of the

Councils who appeared in these cases said that strict liability was essential for the proper

regulation of the use of pay and display parking places, because of the ease with which the

regulations can potentially be abused: it is very easy for a person who receives a PCN for

failing to pay and display a voucher to say, after the event, that payment was made and then

to produce a voucher which may or may not have been purchased at that time for that vehicle.

Each of the Councils said that, in many cases, it would be impossible for them to determine

whether the owner was telling the truth: and that is why, the Councils said, it was important to

have strict liability for this contravention. Without such strict liability the proper regulation of

the use of such places would be impossible, in practice. I consider these submissions are

compelling." (p8)

[DJKillaQueen]

That is very good news Huggers, and especially as it seems to have been resolved very quickly (tu)

[Huggers]

Rosie I did tell her off for doing that and in no way condoned her-and I had to calm her down-she had become hysterical because it was the fourth time a friend had been ticketed in her road when they had bought a voucher. Each time some extraordinary event had rendered it invalid and she was therefore very paranoid. Unfortunately Lambeth has a history of dastardly deeds.

On my letter today it said it was facedown- so i have to take their word for it. But the warden himself said that it was my voucher and it was on the seat- at the time- so he must have had some means of recognising it and I thought when he pointed it out that it was face up, but there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then and I honestly can't say which way it was.