Car park penalties

[neophyte]

Further to my post in Driver Details, the supermarkets want the driver details because they wish to impose a penalty on those who overstay in their car park. Only a Police Constable, a Special [or whatever the blue banders are called these days] or an appropiate officer of a local authority have the power to affix a penalty notice to a vehicle, whilst the HighViz monkeys may claim they have that power, they do not.

[dls]

You are adding things in together.

No 'power' is needed to put a notice on your vehicle.

What is wrong is for a notice to appear to be official.

There may be a query if adhesive is used which leaves a smear requiring to be cleared off. It may amount to criminal damage.
All this has been thrown in the air by the new Protection of Freedoms Act.

The car parking company is free to ask for the driver details. What it can compel is a different question.

[Student]

I was under the impression that what you get given in a supermarket car park etc. was a charge notice, not a penalty?

[Slartibartfast]

I was under the impression that what you get given in a supermarket car park etc. was a charge notice, not a penalty?

Legally, that's right. It's a request for payment of an overstay parking charge, which was (should be) clearly displayed and contractually binding. The description of it as a penalty is risky, as the contract might be held invalid if it contains punitively unfair requirements.

Until recently this could only be recovered from whoever was driving the car, and the Registered Keeper could not be required to identify that person. So supermarket overstay parking demands could be safely ignored, if that met one's moral criteria. The new Protection of Freedoms Act makes the RK liable for overstay parking charges if they do not identify the the driver (as with speeding fines or official parking tickets).

[diy]

The RK is not liable for the speeding fine if they fail to Identify the driver, they get a specific offence of failing to ID, assuming they did not do it in such a way that is acceptable under section 172 of the RTA. The issue with the new freedom act, is that is seems to fix a problem (rogue clampers) but open the flood gates to speculative parking charge notices being sent to the RK. It seems the RK is the default person responsible for the charge. However, I vaguely remember that the contract still needs to be valid and the question of who it was formed with may still remain.

I think we will see some big problems with this new power.

[Slartibartfast]

The RK is not liable for the speeding fine if they fail to Identify the driver, they get a specific offence of failing to ID, assuming they did not do it in such a way that is acceptable under section 172 of the RTA.

That's true, thank you for clarifying.

The issue with the new freedom act, is that is seems to fix a problem (rogue clampers) but open the flood gates to speculative parking charge notices being sent to the RK. It seems the RK is the default person responsible for the charge. However, I vaguely remember that the contract still needs to be valid and the question of who it was formed with may still remain. I think we will see some big problems with this new power.

Schedule 4 (www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2012/9/schedule/4/enacted) sets out the process and safeguards for this. I don't think there are likely to be many problems, once the inevitable 'find a loophole' wriggling is dealt with. Schedul 4 seems fairly well-written to me, and covers the necessary processes in tedious detail. We also went through most of this with s172, so it will be quicker this time.

The important point is that any disputed case will eventually come before a court - so if someone is taking the mickey they'll be punished for it. Greedy, speculative claims from fly-by-night landowners will fail with indemnity costs awarded, and cynical theft of parking facilities by drivers will become very expensive for them. That seems to me to be a good thing, especially as it makes it possible for civil clamping to be prohibited.