Council Claim To Have Not Received My Representations

[Red diesel]

But Balli hi - if you have clear evidence that you were only parked for 5 seconds - how do they consider that you were actually parked. People don't simply park for just under 6 seconds, on that basis if it were me id appeal (but i am no legal expert)but i could very easily understand if you just decided that it would be easier to just pay the £55.

I mean are they effectively saying then that if you wanted to drop or pick up someone (you drive a taxi) outside a shop which has parking restrictions - you can't do it because you will be parked for more than 5 seconds.

Very nice of them (sarcasim lol) to finally get their paperwork together - but i still think the inbred imbaciles are wanting you to simply be a good little chap and pay up like a good chap. Mind you its probably cost them more than £55 with all the expense in dealing with you lol. Youd think theyd just wave the white flag and concede defeat.

But there again common sense and public service admin never did make for a good partnership lol, incidentally our court system in Ireland can't be bothered to have an IT system capable of dealing with payments of fines in instalments. So therefore - people go to jail for none payment of fines - normal everyday crap like not paying TV licences (yes really). So thanks to public service ingenuity the solution is pay a lot more to have them transported to prison and kept in prison. And end up in a cell with 7 or 8 people with all kinds of issues. Youd think that creating a nice system for keeping track of payments would be easy and straightforward with IT "experts" and the like on the government payroll but clearly not. That took the tread of topic but i was merely giving an example of where public service admin set ups don't always work in a common sense way.

Best of luck whatever happens

[Parts-King]

Bali, does it cost you to appeal? If you were setting down a passenger, would you still be fined or is the whole case based on the fact you were parked on the pavement? If it's 50/50 and doesnt cost you any more, surely it's worth a punt?

Kingo

[Jamesbelfast]

The argument hinges on whether leaving the car unattended for 6 seconds constitutes parking or it doesn't. It may do no harm to ask the enforcing authority for a definition in writing of such before going any further.

[balli hi]

Bali, does it cost you to appeal? If you were setting down a passenger, would you still be fined or is the whole case based on the fact you were parked on the pavement? If it's 50/50 and doesnt cost you any more, surely it's worth a punt?

Kingo

quote

"or is the whole case based on the fact you were parked on the pavement"

You got it in one there Kingo, its not a case of being parked, its a case of WHERE i was parked, and i was Parked WITH ONE OR MORE WHEELS ON THE FOOTWAY

When you receive a PCN, contained within and clearly stated in the space provided will be the parking contravention in my case its footway parking in my rejection notice they have further embellished the point by adding " the Highway Code states , YOU MUST NOT PARK PARTIALLY OR WHOLLY ON THE PAVEMENT IN LONDON, AND SHOULD NOT DO SO ELSEWHERE UNLESS SIGNS PERMIT IT, PARKING ON THE PAVEMENT CAN OBSTRUCT AND SERIOUSLY INCONVENIENCE PEDESTRIANS, PEOPLE IN WHEELCHAIRS OR WITH VISUAL IMPARIMENTS AND PEOPLE WITH PRAMS OR PUSHCHAIRS"

Common sense would tell you that i was not parked in the true sense of the word, i,e, i did not get out, lock the car up and went and did my shopping etc , but the fact is i did leave my car momentarily parked just over the curb edge and partially on the footway in order to seek permission from the shop owner to park in his parking bay, the fact is had i been parked in the road whilst i went and sought permission i probably would not have received a PCN, and to answer red diesels question, as a cabby i am permitted 2 minutes to set down or pick up psassengers be it on red route or other, what we are not permitted to do is wait for people while they draw cash from a machine or whatever.

The thing that has annoyed me slightly, is when i first phoned my LTDA rep for advice he told me that 5to6 seconds is very short in terms of evidence and i stood a good chance if i went to appeal, but now and as said after going through everything at length today, he now states that if they have evidence of my vehicle on the footway, then that's all the evidence they need, regardless of how long i was there, he added that my problem is " Trying to convince an adjudicator to see my side of things, BUT an adjudicator cannot allow my appeal on the basis of mitigating cicumstances" which is what he feels i will be basing my case on, the council on the other hand have bullet proof evidence, i,e CCTV images

All the same lads thanks for your input and keep your thoughts coming, its always interesting to see what others would do in the same situation

[Jamesbelfast]

Ah the picture is clearer now. It wasn't a parking offence in the true sense but causing an obstruction on the pavement is the issue.

[Parts-King]

So it WAS you blocking the pavement that day :wheelchair: and you promised me not to do it ever again :D: :D:

Seriously Bali, I would give it a go, it is 50/50 after all, paying up is 0% chance!

Kingo

[Jan&tone]

Bali, I've read the above 'in passing' I have a question...

You are approaching a set of traffic lights near a fire station.

The lights are red

You intend to stop

As you do, a fire engine exits the fire station with all lights going.

To give the engine room to pass, you drive onto the pavement but not across the white line at the lights....

You are now parked on the pavement but waiting for the lights to change.... Are youmcomitting an offence?

Or...

You stop to let a punter out of the cab, she is a little old lady with a dodgy pair of hips and a zimmer frame.

It takes her 2 minutes to get out and you have , being a nice helpful sort of geezer, got out to help her.

Are you committing an offence....

Seems to me that a little leeway is due here, before these jobsworths start booking bus drivers for stopping at bus stops!!

[Red diesel]

Bali, I've read the above 'in passing' I have a question...

You are approaching a set of traffic lights near a fire station.

The lights are red

You intend to stop

As you do, a fire engine exits the fire station with all lights going.

To give the engine room to pass, you drive onto the pavement but not across the white line at the lights....

You are now parked on the pavement but waiting for the lights to change.... Are youmcomitting an offence?

Or...

You stop to let a punter out of the cab, she is a little old lady with a dodgy pair of hips and a zimmer frame.

It takes her 2 minutes to get out and you have , being a nice helpful sort of geezer, got out to help her.

Are you committing an offence....

Seems to me that a little leeway is due here, before these jobsworths start booking bus drivers for stopping at bus stops!!

Look at the end of the day its a revenue raising exercise - if they are looking at video evidence showing that someone stopped on the pavement for 6 seconds and saying an offence is committed. I mean 6 seconds - obstruction caused sweet bugger all, hassle caused bugger all. Unfortunately now with the way rules and regulations are going - there are people in high office who are constantly looking at ways to detect alleged rule breaches or invent new rules. Why - because rule breaking = lots and lots of lolly, at £55 a go theres really not much incentive for honesty, fairness and integrity.

Of course often its not the rules themselves that are a problem but how they are enforced, and people like Bedfordshire Police (featured in Traffic Cops 2011) aren't helping with their idea of giving officers credits for detecting offenses. That just means that offences that a decent cop (ie the type that actually go out and catch real criminals) would simply give a warning for or simply ignore because he (or she) noticed something even more iffier with another car (and find out the driver had about 120 warrants out for his arrest after a huge epic crime wave). Now this cop will have to stop you and give you a ticket in order to look good on managements offence detection sheets lol.

Red diesel

[balli hi]

Bali, I've read the above 'in passing' I have a question...

You are approaching a set of traffic lights near a fire station.

The lights are red

You intend to stop

As you do, a fire engine exits the fire station with all lights going.

To give the engine room to pass, you drive onto the pavement but not across the white line at the lights....

You are now parked on the pavement but waiting for the lights to change.... Are youmcomitting an offence?

Or...

You stop to let a punter out of the cab, she is a little old lady with a dodgy pair of hips and a zimmer frame.

It takes her 2 minutes to get out and you have , being a nice helpful sort of geezer, got out to help her.

Are you committing an offence....

Seems to me that a little leeway is due here, before these jobsworths start booking bus drivers for stopping at bus stops!!

To answer your first question, and because of what i now know regards footway parking, if you drive up the pavement and stay there untill the lights change i would say that you are committing an offence.

In answer to your second question, it all depends where your setting down, if its on a red route then after 2 minutes have expired and i'm still there i would expect to get a PCN, this scenario actually happened to me a couple of years ago, when i set down on Bishopsgate outside Liverpool street station which is a red route, my punters took ages to pay, and eventually handed me a pile of coins of which i had to count, a week or so later i received a PCN from TFL for overstaying the 2 minutes allowed, i argued that i had no control over how long it took my customers to pay me and that once i was payed i had to count a pile of small change, at the end of the day i can't physically take the money from them and then remove them from the cab because they are taking too long, i got a reply from TFL a short while later stating that the PCN had been dropped, :)

Edit

Sorry i had one eye on the footy (Me Chels V Valencia) when replying earlier and didn't answer your question properly Soooooooo if i was helping an old lady from the cab would i be committing an offence if i overstayed the 2 minutes allowed, answer = Yes , things being the way they are now days its come to the point where you just can't stop and wait or put two wheels up on the curb anywhere because of CCTV surveillance, if the fixed cameras don't get you then the smart car will, you know there was a time when i was setting down in a narrow road i would bump the cab up the curb so as i would not hold up traffic behind me, but not anymore from now on i'm keeping all four wheels on the road, if you read the article i copied and pasted a few posts back by Barry Hooper from the LTDA entitled Stand And Deliver he states that with the Advent of CCTV surveillance common sense has gone out of the window, and we can no longer stop and help elderly people with their bags or wait while someone draws cash from a machine etc, because there's someone somewhere sitting behind banks of monitors waiting to penalise you for the slightest indiscretion, read the article you'll get all your answers from it , its the second from last post on page 1

[Jan&tone]

To answer your first question, and because of what i now know regards footway parking, if you drive up the pavement and stay there untill the lights change i would say that you are committing an offence.

So now we don't move over for emergency services!!! Ridiculous... One can just hope that it's an official from the parking authorities that needs the service!

[balli hi]

To answer your first question, and because of what i now know regards footway parking, if you drive up the pavement and stay there untill the lights change i would say that you are committing an offence.

So now we don't move over for emergency services!!! Ridiculous... One can just hope that it's an official from the parking authorities that needs the service!

But its an offence not to let the emergency services through just make sure you move over but don't park up on the pavement

[balli hi]

So it WAS you blocking the pavement that day :wheelchair: and you promised me not to do it ever again :D: :D:

Seriously Bali, I would give it a go, it is 50/50 after all, paying up is 0% chance!

Kingo

Should i go to adjudication and lose the £55 fine will double to £110

My LTDA reps change of heart has left me feeling that i am on a losing wicket, maybe he is just covering his own ar-se ?, but he's not given me a bum steer up to now (no pun intended) i have appealed the one he said i should appeal (bishopsgate) and won, there was another he advised me to appeal a couple of years ago, when i turned right out of Gerrard Place onto shaftesbury avenue, i was filmed by a smart car operator, who was parked on the cab rank on the corner of Gerrard St (china town), the cheeky git :ffs: i did wonder at the time why he was there and what he would be filming, so i unsuspectingly turned right not noticing the very small no right turn sign that was set back from the junction and situated on the left, unbeknownst to me westminster council had decided to make it illegal and had recently placed the no right turn sign about 15 foot before the give way lines at the junction with Shaftesbury Ave, the sign was the size of a dinner plate, so it was easy to miss especially if you were unaware of the change in priorities, plus there was no sign placed on the right side of the road, just the small one on the left, the other contentious point was an 'ahead only' arrow painted on the road in Gerrard place, the problem is if you drove straight ahead as instructed ( the arrow painted on the road is an instruction) you would have driven into the cinema opposite, so My LTDA rep advised me to appeal on the grounds of incorrect and conflicting signage, he told me that my reps would be rejected as standard procedure employed by Westminster council, but i should then go to adjudiaction, as other members had done and won, he explained that there never is a 100% guarentee of winning because the adjudicator on the day may for whatever reason find against you on the day, but that said thats always the chance you take, but finished by saying appeal and you should win.

Well on the day i received my formal rejection letter from westminster council, it was just an hour or so before my family and i were about to leave home to go on holiday, i didn't have time to fill in the forms for PATAS then rush up to the post office to send the forms off by recorded delivery, so reluctantly i picked up the phone and payed the fine using my credit card. A few months later i read in the LTDA newspaper that Westminster council had corrected the signage in Gerrard place and removed the ahead only arrow from the road because every case that went to adjudiaction regards turning right out of Gerrard place had been thrown out in favour of the appellent, so had i had more time when my rejection letter arrived and i appealed i would have probably won.

To cut a very long story short i am not about to back against my LTDA reps judgment now, as you've probably guessed i'm going to fall on my sword and cough up they have given me 14 days to pay so i'll be paying them on the 13th day permitted.

[junebug1701]

One nation under CCTV, with liberty and justice for none.