Flash, Bang, Wallop - what a picture!
CCTV. Increasingly, a bane for the modern motorist. But we are grateful to one iPM listener for bringing this to our attention. A local story, but one that highlights a national problem.
Here's the rub. In London, CCTV cameras can issue fines automatically, but there are a growing number of appeals that result in local authorities having to admit that they have been issuing fines illegally, often for a variety of reasons. Nevertheless, in the time the camera's were happily flashing away they raised vasts sums of cash for the local council. But, where it has been proved the camera fallen foul of the law/regulations - is it right for the council to hold on to the money? And what chance does the motorist have of getting his or her money back? You'll find plenty of groups ( here and here ) willing to help drivers appeal, but at first glance there doesn't appear to be a move toward "best practice" and in one instance the police have now been asked to investigate alleged council fraud. More soon and your experience, advice and thoughts on this are more than welcome.
For iPM reporter Bob Platt has been speaking to one traffic camera campaigner Jonathan Greatorex.
Update
Eddie interviewed Lord Lucas yesterday for PM. He's a Conservative peer who chairs the London Motorists Action Group. We'll run a shorter clip of the interview on iPM today; here's the longer version.
And here's a longer cut of the interview with Nick Lester, Corporate Director of Services at London Councils.
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If I sign into blogs, the story changes from "traffic cameras" to "CCTV" (in London), but the links still refer to speeding and parking as well. Are you sure which story you're trying to tell (and is it a national one)?
A nice loophole they found though! Good job it wasn't over anything important.
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Caroline - I think we'd need a week to try and unravel what is a huge subject. But your point is a fair one. It is a national story coz CCTV cameras are increasingly being used to issue automatic fines. What we are trying fathom is what happens to the cash raised? So - you appeal and you win. But seemingly there is nothing in law to stop the council from raising more money using the same camera, taking the same picture from the same location. Given that so few people do appeal, perhaps you can understand why, but is it right?
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My story:
I once objected to a new speed limit. The authority asked me to withdraw my objection, because otherwise the police could not enforce the limit. The matter was resolved.
I also objected to another limit (reduction from 40 to 30). At no time was I asked to withdraw my objection. Years later my wife was "Done" for driving at 40. I asked the Council if the police were actually authorised to enforce the 30 limit. Correspondence went to and fro, involving City and County Councils, until eventually I received a letter to the effect that because the lamp posts were suitably spaced, the limit WAS enforceable. This caused me to wonder if there is actually any point in offering the public any say in the matter. Perhaps the process is a waste of public money. I've been meaning to ask the LA Ombudsman about this but never got around to it.
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I am very pleased that the BBC has decided to investigate this issue. I was caught in a yellow box junction in Wandsworth 3 months ago and, because of the traffic conditions pertaining at the time, felt disinclined to pay up £120 to Transport for London without first investigating further. My enquiries lead to the discovery that this particular box is non-compliant with the relevant traffic act, and that therefore penalties imposed are in Law unenforceable, but that despite this it has netted over a milliopn pounds in 3 years! I wrote twice to TfL stating this, sending the letter Recorded Delivery each time, but received no acknowledgements of any sort. In due course I received a communication informing me that enforcement proceedings HAD ALREADY, without my knowledge, been taken against me by TfL in a Bulk Order procedure, located at Northampton County Court, and that if I did not pay up what had now become £185 within 14 days the Bailiffs would be sent to carry off my property! To avoid this, I had to submit a sworn Statutory Declaration (cost to me £5) to the Court stating that I had made representations to TfL. This I did, having no wish, in my mature years and being a law-abiding citizen, to face a confrontation with Bailiffs. I subsequently wrote a very strong letter of complaint to the Enforcement Services Manager of TfL, as a consequence of which the PCN has been cancelled.
The entire exercise has been time-consuming and infuriating, but in my case right has finally prevailed. I am, though, out of pocket to the tune of around £10 (the Stat.Dec plus a number of Recorded Delivery letters).
It is high time these bullying, revenue-raising practices were brought to a halt. For every one motorist who has the time and energy and access to information enabling him or her to contest an illegal fine, there are almost 100 who pay up.
I am NOT referring here, by the way, to any legitimate summons issued by the Police for recognised motoring offences (speeding, dangerous driving etc.) but to the revenue raising practices of local authorities who are, I now learn, able to obtain an enforcement order, and send in Bailiffs, without informing the defendant or giving them, therefore, any opportunity to state their case.
Well done BBC for bringing this issue to wider attention.
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I spend much time looking for free and legal places to park, usually entailing a longer walk to work, but feeling safe and secure, I left my car in a road where i Have parked before. On returning at six pm to my car, laden with lap top and office work and food for the weekend, I could not see my car. I thought I had got the wrong road and walked around convinced eventually my car had been stolen. Luckily phoning the police who werent happy to help, they gave me the number of TRACE a company who then were able to give me the whereabout of my car - In Ealing Car Pound - they werent able to tell me why and I was mystified. This was thursday before the bank holiday easter weekend.
I miserably got on a bus, used my oyster card,I had little cash not expecting to need any, and then got another packed connecting bus, used my oyster card again - it was 40p short and I was told to get off the bus. I did get off, and thought Id wait till the next bus and explain to the driver what happened - car towed away etc, I duly did and he let me stay on the bus for just TWO stops, then told me to get off. I might add that I am a young to middle aged woman in respectable clothes, upset and tired at the time. I walked home, and drowned my sorrows with a couple of glassed of wine.
I thought I would get my car the next day. After several phone calls I discovered that my back tyre had been parked on the grass and that was contravening some pathway infringement, though no one walks on the grass, but anyway I could not get my car till Tuesday morning, which meant asking a friend to take me, as the place is on the north circular and probably difficult to get to by public transport, and difficult to locate on any map either - only those unlucky enough to have been there
can tell you where it is.
the weekend was dire, not being able to have my car.
I was duly taken to get my car, the metal gates swung open, my friend was not allowed in with me. It was grim inside, I felt i was entering Holloway, asked for my documents etc.
I duly paid £250 on my credit card, and then at last -45 minutes later, as I saw my car keys being handed over, I was presented with an envelope, the humorless woman looked as though she was enjoying this bit!
In it was a letter from some 'baillifs' demanding £365..00 for an unpaid parking fine from 18 months ago, which had been sent to an address in Plymouth, where I once lived. I could not contest the parking fine, it said, and had to pay before 6pm that day. I looked at the woman safely behind the screen who said, Its nothing to do with me, but if you leave that car here overnight it'll cost you another £250. It took another 30 minutes to locate a number and pay by credit card, press buttons and complete the transaction.
Two weeks later I got a letter in the post - a parking fine of £100. for the offence of parking my back tyre on the grass.
Does this inhuman treatment and the penalty fit the nature of this 'crime' ?
I am a hard working tax payer, I dont know wether this offence I committed was issued legally or not, but I know that I feel a victim, feeling pretty penniless by this medieval method of
extracting taxes. £710..00 for inadvertently parking on a pice of grass.
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I picked up a parking ticket in Islington after 18:30 on 12/12/2007 as it was, apparently, a 'match day'. This was explained on the kerbside notices but these also said that additional signage would be displayed on match days and there was none. After several letters Islington admitted that the 'signage was defective' and cancelled the charge. So if anyone else has been stung in this way (and I saw dozens of cars with tickets that evening) please write to Eniko Varga, Correspondence and Appeals Officer for Islington. A couple of points arising from this: if you pay the reduced rate as I did (in this case £60) to avoid the full rate of £120 you forfeit your right to appeal. Some authorities make this clear in their literature but Islington's did not and, all credit to them, they did refund my £60. But this practice really does seem immoral to me as you have to risk a higher fine in order to argue your case, and what's more Islington told me that an appeal to the Parking and Traffic Appeals Service could result in costs being awarded to either party. No wonder that most people just pay up rather than risk an unspecified fine. Finally I did ask Islington whether, as the signage was defective, they would ask other people who had been penalised that evening to apply for a refund. They did not offer to contact those affected but did say that 'any appeals that are made under such grounds to this council will result in a refund to the appellant.' So good luck and happy appealing.
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I found your programme fascinating, and it had many resonances of the nightmare I had with TfL and a box junction infraction on Archway Road at the junction with Shepherd's hill, in Highgate, London N6. It is very badly designed, with a bus stop just a few yards after the junction, and this causes traffic in the left hand lane to pull out to overtake the bus, cutting into the right hand lane, thereby blocking their exit from the box junction. In the first place, they issued a PCN which did not show the number of my vehicle, and indeed it was difficult to tell whether or not it was my car. They then issued further photographs, after which I raised the point about the box design. This had been pointed out before, but in my case, I argued the point and asked various questions under the Freedom of Information Act. TfL did not respond within the time limit. Although I pressed them by telephone for a reply, they told me the matter was on hold, leading me to believe I did not need to enter an appeal until I had heard from them. In the meantime I was informed that my fine was doubled and I no longer had the right to appeal as time had expired. I wrote to PATAS, but without success. I also sought to get the Information Commissioner to look at the matter, because of the unnecessary delay by TfL in answering a purely factual question about the number of fines imposed at the junction.
I have doubts about the legality of the junction, and wonder how many other people have been caught. The infraction is supposed to be entering the box when the exit is not clear, but that is not how they interpret it. The exit might be clear on entering, but then becomes blocked by a car changing lane, but they do not look at that on their videos. I would be interested to know how many such cases there are at this junction and across London.
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Well done Eddie with that slimey Nick Lester trying to defend the indefensible. What about all the illegal penalties (NOT fines as Lester insisted) stolen by the deliberate use of the forshortening feature of the photographic evidence to mislead motorists into believing an offence has been committed. Legalised robbery. The good Lord was right in thinking that it brings the authorities nothing but contempt.
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Why do I need to sign in and give the bbc (false) information in order to make a comment???? Big brother is not only mad but frankly downright stupid now!!!!
Back to the story...
Of course it is morally indefensible and plain wrong for councils (acting for the government - or in other words as servants for the people of this country!!!! - note SERVANTS) to STEAL money. Worse is that most of these double yellow lines and other parking restrictions are ONLY present to force people to use parking places where the council can CHARGE. The restrictions are very very rarely for safety reasons. A good proof of this is Newmarket in Suffolk, the council introduced car parking charges (against a 97% vote against by the people of Newmarket - and note this was a Conservative council - so much for democracy Cameron), since the introduction of the charge they have been steadily (as fast as the painters can work) been installing double yellow lines all over the town.
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Yet again we have a country policed by ignorant small minded mini hitlers with targets to raise revenue from the few hard working over taxed indivduals who manage to support:
800,000 who at least are trying to get a job
2.7 million sitting on their backsides with no intention of working because the benefits are too good
2.8 million who are somehow so 'ill' they can't work - although most of them can still manage to shop, walk, do sports etc.
an untold number of million petty theives employed by councils and the government to make our lives hell
an untold number of people whose job is to come up with new fines and ways of imposing them
millions of workers in the USA, Germany, India, China, Sweden, France that benefit from our goverments largesse in spending this stolen income on foreign goods and services (BMW police cars, Mercedes vans, Indian computer systems, and US spy equipment)
millions of tax payers in the rest of the EU subsidised by our continued largess in giving the EU yet again far more than we get back.
Sometimes a story just makes me spit, and this is one, I don't think there is a single politician or councillor in this country that can hold their head up high as a decent human being.
- white, middle aged, home owning, working father.
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It is much worse than your program portrays. The 'Independent 'Adjudicators attend British Parking Association meetings giving advice to Councils and give no equivalent advice to the motorist. But then the adjudicators are appointed by all the DPE councils working together through the NPASJC (Joint Committee). A council has to be a member of NPASJC to run DPE. Councils up and down the country are using identical 'spin' answers to to try wriggle out of illegal signage issues, there seems to be obvious collusion going one here.
The QC you interviewed is obviously highly skilled and knowledgeable but he only scratched the surface - and I am sure he knows that. But the general public doesn't have a clue about how pervasive and organised this 'robbery' is.
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Of course fines should be issued correctly, but why, whenever this type of story is run does the assertion by commentators that speed cameras, parking fines etc are simply money making scemes by councils go unchallenged. So many lazy journalists allow this throw away comment to be stated without question.
The overwhelming majority of parking fines etc are issued for a good reason - to manage our congested streets or to try and make the roads safer.
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It seems to me that artisticAaron shows extraordinary naivety in his comment. It is obvious that this 'legalised' theft has nothing whatsoever to do with road safety and keeping traffic moving, but more to do with punishing motorists who are perceived as responsible for the planet's ills', not to mention about showing who is in control. I know of people receiving parking fines while they were visiting the Pay-and-Display machines!
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