News

Big shake-up of parking laws

New parking laws are coming in to force in car parks and on streets across England and Wales that aim to put an end to reports of dodgy tickets and dubious wardens.

With parking being a major source of grief for many people, particularly in busy urban areas where the vast majority of the nearly 3.5 million tickets issued last year were handed out, the new laws will come as a relief to many motorists who have been caught out in the past. A new 2-tier system of fines will see penalties for minor offences, such as overstaying the meter, dropping, whilst those for more serious breaches, such as parking on double yellow lines, will rise.

The reforms were proposed in the Traffic Management Act 2004 and confirmed by MP’s in 2006 when the House of Commons transport committee described the situation in England and Wales as “inconsistent and confused”. The key changes introduced include more use of CCTV cameras to catch offenders in the act, especially in busier areas, the ability to send tickets through the post instead of attaching them to the windscreen, and re-training parking attendants who will then be known as Civil Enforcement Officers.

Motoring Organisation the AA has welcomed the new changes, its spokesperson Paul Watters highlighted the new powers given to parking adjudicators to get councils to sort out problems such as illegal signs or badly marked parking areas. Previously these adjudicators were only able to reimburse the fine to the motorist.

The change to a more motorist friendly approach has been piloted in areas such as Manchester, which since 2006 have seen the benefit of the doubt being given to motorists in cases where tickets were only a few minutes out of date, or where delivery vans were blocking roadways they were told to move on rather than being penalised straight away.

Councils will also be receiving new guidelines telling them not to use parking tickets as a way to raise money, and should not set targets for the amount of tickets to be issued.

One Call Sorts All specializes in providing a complete road traffic accident management service, and although we can’t help you with your parking tickets, our solicitors will be happy to advise you on almost every other area of road traffic law. To speak to one of our claims advisors about making a claim for compensation, call 0800 056 0975 today.