Time for a parking charge campaign (I think)

I think it's time for a campaign.

The reason for the note of hesitation is that first I feel I need some legal advice.

A number of papers are carrying a story about the demise of parking meters. They are being replaced by those pay and display ticket machines. And it is these machines that would be the subject of my campaign. If there was to be such a campaign.

Is it really legal for those machines to fail to give you change? Even when the coins you have put in exceed the amount required for the maximum parking time, no change is returned.

I am sure there are some basic laws that make this permissible, but I wonder if some of the myriad laws and regulations governing public bodies and consumer rights really allows this. I suspect it would be possible to have this over charging ruled an abuse and stopped. But this is no more than a suspicion.

I would like to hear from you

a. To find out if you share my view that a symbolic victory against this behaviour would be worth winning. After all, the consumption of my change is a stealth tax, not a fair imposition

and

b. To find out if you or anyone you know might be able to cast some light on the legal questions involved.

UPDATE: if you want to email in confidence, then contact me at commentcentral@thetimes.co.uk

Another UPDATE: Baby Barista gives us some legal advice...

Comments

[dizzy]

I tell you what's even more outrageous! The bloody ones in Lewisham make you put in the three digits of your license plate too.

So if you pay for three hours and only use two you cannot give your ticket to someone else.

No change, and they fleece the next customer. Scammers.

[MTK]

Dizzy,

Haven't the tickets always said "not transferable"? Maybe the first sale doctrine would be another avenue for action though. (Equally on train tickets. Why exactly can't I lend a friend my season ticket to visit town when I am not using it?)

Danny,

BT and other phoneboxes have always done something like this too. You can get back unused coins but no change. If you put in a 50p and only use 20p (a bit unlikely given the cost of payphone calls these days, I admit) you get nothing. However if you put in a 20p before hanging up you can get the 50p back. Geeky but true.

I think this is done because a device where the cashbox can feed coins back into the phone is much more expensive and, most importantly, a great deal easier to break into.

MTK.

[Nigel Harris]

I'd be very interested to learn what the legal position is. The way we are asked to pay for parking seems unfair in many respects. First, we have to guess how long we're going to stay and pay in advance. Inevitably, this often means paying for longer than needed, as the penalty for underestimation can be a large fine. Second, we have to pay using exact change, and we may not always have a suitable selection of coins to hand - again this may often mean overpayment. Third, most machines require us to pay in multiples of one hour. One pound buys an hour, two pounds buys two hours, but two pounds fifty also buys just two hours. Finally, when we discover that the event we parked for has been cancelled, and return to collect our car after just 10 minutes, there is no provision for obtaining any refund for the 3 hours of parking that we had to buy becuase we thought we were most likely going to be there for 2 hours and 10 minutes. All of this is clearly unacceptable, and it baffles me that it is legal. What other goods or services are sold in this way?

Nigel

[Tony]

Here in Lowestoft not only do they refuse change, a voice then warns you to 'Lock your car, there are thieves about'!

[Hugh Tonks]

Plus ca change - those in a position of power will always set things up to their own advantage.

However, this particular example is theft, pure and simple. It reminds me of that other great scam - employers taking your holiday off you if you fail to use it quickly enough.

[Gilbert Kiefer]

The smartest parking meter I ever encountered was on a trip to Germany to see a solar eclipse during 1990s. I was in Burghausen on the Salzach River, just across from Austria. I paid up to the parking meter as many coins as I had to see the event. I actually overpaid the meter past the 6:00 PM metering period. The meter was smart enough to save the payment as a credit the next morning after metering began at 9:00 AM.

[Martyn Lobley]

I seem to remember some parking ticket machines were adorned with the legend, "No change given. Overpayment accepted" - not even 'gratefully' !

[Jane Reynolds]

Pay and Display is my constant annoyance for all the reasons posted. I often have to end my shopping before I have finished because I underestimated how long it will take and realise my time is up at the meter. But what really annoys me, is that this is at a town owned parking lot. So as a citizen, I own it. And these officials are my employees, hired to make our town work for us. My council tax is paying for it. I am being charged twice. These local government employees seem to have no understanding of what their real function in life is, and that is to make the town work for us. It must be wrong to charge townspeople a tax to park in their own lot. Next they will put up entrance charges for the town park, if they don't sell it off first to a developer.

[Mick Farrell]

In Croatia all parking is paid for countrywide by sms for years now. Or why not extend the Oyster scheme in London, or even have a national parking card which can be topped up?
Here in Switzerland there's a city wide parking card.

[Richard Arnold]

Once I drove into town on Sunday. I'd fed the meter around £10, and then suddenly released it was free. Of course, I couldn't get the money back...

[MTK]

Gilbert Kiefer,

I don't think your German meter was necessarily all that clever. Even the meters in Islington can do this, and it's very useful (if still ruinous) if you have friends visiting.

MTK.

[Gerry]

Westminster is switching to a new scam: no meters, payment via mobile phone. So that means that if you leave before your time has expired it can't be used by anyone elese as it could with a meter.

Needless to say, they're also quietly making another killing by using rip-off 0870 numbers.

Presumably if you don't have a mobile your car will have been clamped before you have found a working payphone !

[Chris]

And all the time towns are complaining that shoppers are deserting them for the out of town superstores and shopping centres with their unlimited free parking...

[jonathan]

Some machines let you buy time in small increments e.g. 5 minutes. Others force you to buy in large increments - typically 20 minutes. Such machines swallow your extra coins with no warning and give no value for them until you hit the 20 minute threshold. For example if parking is say £1/ hour - machine A may be set to sell time in 20 minute increments. It will happily swallow 6 20p pieces without any warning that no time is being given for the 6th 20p. An identical looking machine - say machine B might be set to give you 1 hour and 12 minutes - for the same £1.20.

It seems to me that the council that operate machine A are guilty of theft - for taking the 6th 20p and giving nothing in return. There seems to be no reason they can't eitehr return the 6th 20p or give you 12 minutes for it since the pay and display machines are quite capable of doing either.

[accidental lawstudent]

I think this is one of those sneaky little lacunae in the law where they're technically not doing anything wrong.

Similar situation to those privately-owned retail car parks that are free for an hour but charge you £60 if you overstay -- they're technically outside of the law as well. If you challenge the ticket, they can't legally enforce it; but the average person doesn't know enough about their rights or contract law and so ends up paying it. Extortion, essentially.

[Grenville]

The parking meters in Sheffield charge by the minute. You can work out when to stop adding change when the meter time reaches the time you wish to return. What could be more sensible?

[Chris]

The trick of the meters in Manchester is to make the calculating of how much to pay very difficult by breaking hours up into different portions that carry different costs (eg. the first half an hour of each hour costs £x, and then £x for each subsequent 15 mins). Needlessly complicated...

[Mike Evans]

Rational parking charges are a way of sharing out a scarce resource. Lewisham, Bristol and others, however, go to the expense of installing machines that require you to put in your car number, so you can't pass the space to the next guy when you go early.

Nothing to do with rationing a scarce resource. Everything to do with screwing the punter for every penny you can get. What a miserable contrast with France, where lunchtime parking is free. Still some remnants of civilisation there.

[dave]

Parking in Daventry is free. FREE!
Why isn't it everywhere?

[Mike P]

Can't you see? Meters are just another source of income for local councils. They go one further in Canterbury, not only do they charge extortion rates to park even late in the evening, but I have seen parking attendants issuing tickets to people at 9pm at night in a carpark that is half empty!

What happened to the days of parking attendants (traffic wardens, to give them their less 'fuzzy' title) who were employed to keep the roads flowing and prevent the abusers of short stay town car parks.

I guess there was no money in that!

[C.Duke]

You're not entitled to change at a shop either. If you use meters a lot and it bothers you that much why not just get organised with a bag of change. This is a non-issue.