How does one stand in this situation.
Person A drives their car into town. Parks legally for just under 1 hour and returns home.
Person B, who resides in the same household and shares the same car, then drives into town a short while later and parks along the same stretch of road but in a slightly different place, but still within the parking zone.
Person B also parks for less than an hour but returns to car to find PCN on windscreen claiming 'you have returned within 2 hours 24 minutes'.
Person A did not inform person B they had already been into town and parked for the aforementioned duration. Why would they?
Person B in all innocence takes the same car into town and gets a ticket despite being parked perfectly legally to their knowledge.
When these rules are allegedly breached, the traffic officer must presume its the same driver who has parked, left and returned too soon. If this is the case, is their presumption sound in law? i.e. is it right to presume the driver returned too soon rather than the vehicle?
And whats to stop this happening to an employee driving a pool car or delivery van for instance where different drivers park and leave well within time but the vehicle is spotted returning too soon?
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Contest with proof. This can be an interesting case.
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I expect they have heard this tale more than once. In all probability they will take your word for it and cancel the PCN but there again they might not. :-)
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The authorities need to define somewhere what is meant by 'no return'; does it refer to the vehicle, or the driver?
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I heard that in Canada, wardens spray some paint on tyres to identify whether vehicles were parked somewhere for long. The paint disappears after few hours.
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The same issue could arise where Car Club cars get driven by different drivers to the same street.
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If it's the driver, not the car, that counts, then how about this:
A drives his car to work and parks in the limited stay car park.
B does the same.
At the end of the day they each drive home in each other's car.
What happens if you park twice but in a different car?
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If it's 1 hour free but you can't return back to the car for another 3 hours, then surely that's 4 hours in total?
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>> If it's 1 hour free but you can't return back to the car for another 3 hours, then surely that's 4
>> hours in total?
You're not seriously saying you think that are you? I think you're missing the smiley :-)
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I'm wondering why two people who reside in the same household and share the same car, couldn't organise themselves sufficiently that they could have just made one journey, rather than repeating exactly the same journey twice.
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It could happen to us. We don't share the same cars, but sometimes either of us will take the one closest to the gate. Especially if someone (me, apparently) has parked without consideration or left hers without petrol (She should get a car like mine, it seems to have a petrol fairy).
And sometimes herself goes out without us discussing and planning her intended trip and do I.
I cannot imagine many greater levels of misery than trying to coordinate my activities with my wife, especially if I change my mind and do something on the spur of the moment. Or she does.
I probably can't imagine a greater range of vocabulary than my wife would use if I said that in future I wanted our individual outings co-ordinated.
Honestly, I'm a bit surprised it hasn't happened to us, especially in the shorter term 20mins/no return in 2 hrs examples. I'd guess that we both park in the Market Place fairly often for fairly short periods of time.
I'm interested in the final answer to this one.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Thu 22 May 14 at 00:17
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This did actually happento a friend, who borrowed her fathers car, and picked up a ticket at a local supermarket as the result of a second visit. Whilst the outsourced contractor/operator of the car park scheme was totally unsympathetic, the manager of the the supermarket managed to see some sense, and somehow got the the PCN lookalike cancelled.
I suspect it maybe a little more difficult if the parking is shared at somewhere like a retail park.
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It's got to be the car, not the driver.
Cars can be tracked by their number plates, people can't.
It's the car that is parked, not the person who put it there, nor the person who moves it.
If you share a car it's just one of the things you have to factor in, like petrol, maintenance, insurance, etc.
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If the street that you've parked on has CCTV, then there should be sufficient evidence to prove the car had more than one driver, parked in a different spot, diffferent direction, etc.
Getting hold of that CCTV evidence however.........
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The purpose of the restriction is to prevent short term parking being abused by moving vehicles around. In that sense it would be no defence to plead different drivers; the infringement is committed iro the vehicle.
Couldn't find anything on the Traffic Penalty Tribunal's example cases page to cover it, which suggests it's not, unlike fluttering tickets or going for change, something they regard as newsworthy. I think, assuming it's a Council issued ticket, the best that an be hoped for is the Council exercising discretion.
Anecdote:
I worked for a while in an office overlooking Lincoln's Inn Fields. Part of an adjoining building was occupied by a solicitors firm in which several partners drove to work in assorted upper range BMW, Saab etc models. Cars were left on the meters around square (now pay/display) which were subject to max stay/no return restriction.
Every couple of hours a secretary would sally forth from building with keys and a bag of change and move the cars round the square from Westminster's bays to Camden's and vv.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Thu 22 May 14 at 11:00
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The problem with this solution is it was dreamed up and implemented by Bert. He consulted Ethel, his wife.
Bert has been married to Ethel for the last 35 years, they sit at facing desks at the County Council HQ where they commute in one car every day.
Bert and Ethel used to sit next to each other at school since the age of 11.
Ethel passed her test at 17 but Bert does all the driving because he's so much better at it.
It is not possible in their world that husband and wife might do things separately or that children might share the parent's car.
I did my year out working for an NHS authority where there were several Bert and Ethel's.
My first "job" after graduating was with a local authority where there were again several Bert and Ethel's especially in Finance.
The red tape got to me and I left for the private sector.
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Thanks for all replies.
Yes, its an intresting case and Mrs Manwithnoname will be contacting said company to describe the conditions under which the car was seen to be parked twice.
I certainly see the logic of using the vehicle as the focal point, after all, as has been stated before, cars have reg numbers and keepers so can be traced and photographed and drivers cannot
But ultimately, its the driver who is the transgressor because cars don't drive themselves, yet in this case, neither driver was actually at fault and technically did nothing wrong, other than share a car (purely for convenience) and by pure chance, happened to park it along the same stretch of road.
If it's taken further I shall keep thee informed.
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For clarity, was the ticket issued by the Council or a private landowner?
If latter then single shop (eg Tesco) or for a multi store site?
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From the original post, the suggestion is it was a road, therefore probably council issued?
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>> From the original post, the suggestion is it was a road, therefore probably council issued?
I thought that too but then there was a reference to Mrs Nameless 'contacting the company'.
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The ticket was issued on a public road by a council run parking partnership.
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For a clamp job. Battery powered angle grinder (Metabo). Spare battery and thin 1.6mm cutting discs. Voila.
Last edited by: MD on Tue 27 May 14 at 19:50
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You can get petrol angle grinders like chainsaws too. You just have to be careful of the wheels and tyres.
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The wife's only gorn and paid it!
She wanted to settle it before she took herself and the kids up north to the outlawas for half-term.
Guess we'll never find out what the outcome could have been.
TMWNN
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Car parking 1 hour free no return in 3 hours - movilogo
