Sainsbury's car park confusion fines cost drivers £4,600 (From Bucks Free Press)
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Sainsbury's car park confusion fines cost drivers £4,600
4:51pm Tuesday 31st January 2012 in Wycombe district By James Nadal
Sainsbury's car park confusion fines cost drivers £4,600
FINES worth a total of £4,600 were slapped on the cars of motorists left confused by the new Marlow Sainsbury's car parking machines, figures reveal.
Angry drivers contacted the Free Press after being given £50 penalties at the council run Central Car Park, behind the revamped West Street store.
See related articles beneath.
They bought a parking ticket and displayed it on their dashboards only to discover later that the piece of paper was in fact a refund voucher for the supermarket.
Initially, sheets of paper were printed from the machines in two separate parts. The first was the discount voucher, the second the valid parking ticket.
Drivers who spoke to the Free Press said they were totally unaware of this.
They said the refund vouchers looked just like a normal pay and display ticket, containing information on the time and location for their stay in the car park.
Wycombe District Council changed the machines after motorists contacted officials, saying the tickets had caused confusion.
Yet, appeals against fines have been rejected.
Freedom of Information Act stats requested by the BFP have this week come back showing 92 drivers were caught out by the machines from December 1 and December 20.
A total of 168 fines – carrying a £50 maximum charge - were issued because the motorist had not clearly displayed a valid pay & display ticket.
This is how the official parking contravention is recorded.
Of these, 92 were issued due to a refund voucher being displayed instead of a valid pay and display ticket.
However, in its response WDC said: “For context, 15,003 pay & display tickets were purchased in the car park over the same period and therefore only 0.6 per cent of ticket sales related to drivers incorrectly displaying a voucher.”
Were you one of those left confused by the machines?
Leave your comments below or email bfpnews@london.newsquest.co.uk.
Comments(17)
bobby698
says...
5:52pm Tue 31 Jan 12
Blimey, I'm in the wrong job - anyone fancy going halves on a spot of land in Marlow? We'll tarmac it over, paint some white lines and charge £5 per hour. Easy money!!
buser
says...
6:07pm Tue 31 Jan 12
Ralph Malph wrote:It must be GREAT to be perfect and NEVER make a mistake and how strange that there are so many "stupid" people who made the same error and made the council so much money! Bobby 698, what a super money making idea! Sounds like GREAT minds think alike! You and the Councillors in charge of car parks and highways. Good luck in your money making venture! Remember to make all instructions and ticket issuing slightly ambiguous and you will surely be on to a winner.
Shock news.
Stupid people do something stupid and blame someone else.
Ralph Malph
says...
6:24pm Tue 31 Jan 12
buser wrote:Over 14,900 people understood the rather simple context.
Ralph Malph wrote:It must be GREAT to be perfect and NEVER make a mistake and how strange that there are so many "stupid" people who made the same error and made the council so much money! Bobby 698, what a super money making idea! Sounds like GREAT minds think alike! You and the Councillors in charge of car parks and highways. Good luck in your money making venture! Remember to make all instructions and ticket issuing slightly ambiguous and you will surely be on to a winner.
Shock news.
Stupid people do something stupid and blame someone else.
92 did not.
One half is the ticket, one half the voucher - as it is in supermarket car parks all over the country. It's not bleedin' rocket science so yes, people that got it wrong were rather stupid. As usual though, it's got to be someone else's fault.
Ralph Malph
says...
6:33pm Tue 31 Jan 12
When I do though I accept I've done something stupid and don't run around bleating it's someone else's fault I was stupid.
piran
says...
7:40pm Tue 31 Jan 12
buser
says...
7:45pm Tue 31 Jan 12
Ralph Malph wrote:A GREAT phylosophy and one I totally concur with, alongside which, I try not to be judgemental of other people's mistakes, and I guess, I often fail on that one too. What is obvious to many is not to the few. Perhaps the Marlow Sainsbury's carpark would work better on the barrier system used in High Wycombe although the barriers constantly break down and so impair the system there too.
And btw buser I'm in no way perfect and do many stupid things.
When I do though I accept I've done something stupid and don't run around bleating it's someone else's fault I was stupid.
gpn01
says...
11:19pm Tue 31 Jan 12
Ralph Malph wrote:When you put your money in a CAR PARK TICKET MACHINE, you expect it to dispense a CAR PARK TICKET. You don't ask it to dispense a voucher that can be exchanged in a local shop for a refund.
buser wrote:Over 14,900 people understood the rather simple context.
Ralph Malph wrote:It must be GREAT to be perfect and NEVER make a mistake and how strange that there are so many "stupid" people who made the same error and made the council so much money! Bobby 698, what a super money making idea! Sounds like GREAT minds think alike! You and the Councillors in charge of car parks and highways. Good luck in your money making venture! Remember to make all instructions and ticket issuing slightly ambiguous and you will surely be on to a winner.
Shock news.
Stupid people do something stupid and blame someone else.
92 did not.
One half is the ticket, one half the voucher - as it is in supermarket car parks all over the country. It's not bleedin' rocket science so yes, people that got it wrong were rather stupid. As usual though, it's got to be someone else's fault.
.
WDC obviously realised the problem because I noticed soon after the scheme started additional notices were put up explaining the system. Additionally attendants (or possibly helpful Sainsbury's staff) actually came over and explained to people putting the money in what was happening.
.
Finally the system was amended so that both tickets were printed on the same strip.
.
One wonders, for the period in which a refund voucher was printed first AND no extra signs had been put up AND for the period that the attendants didn't say anything, just how many parking violations were recorded and how many valid tickets were issued and displayed.
Rodney Ranshaw
says...
9:48am Wed 1 Feb 12
piran
says...
11:17am Wed 1 Feb 12
Rodney Ranshaw wrote:Come on WDC take up the sensible suggestion by Rodney Ranshaw. Show that sense prevails and do not use this mistake, by over 90 motorists, to raise revenue! And welcome visitors to Marlow.
A mistake was made to or by 0.6% of the car park users, a genuine error by the motorist , WDC or both! Why not for the small percentage of motorists involved, being a relatively small amount of money, repay the fines on this occasion (status quo)? Leave the name calling in the school playground.
Malc London
says...
1:40pm Wed 1 Feb 12
There was clearly a problem with the tickets (otherwise why change them?) and so these fines should be refunded.
s6blr
says...
9:22am Thu 2 Feb 12
Whilst I'm not perfect, I could make out the difference of the 2 tickets even when they weren't attached.
Epic Fail on the 92's part if 14,000 got it right.
GeoranToon
says...
11:13am Thu 2 Feb 12
s6blr wrote:Something was definitely dodgy *before* the machines were modified to issue ticket attached to voucher. I received a bundle of two tickets and one voucher, with one ticket that had been jammed in the machine that came out stuck to the voucher like a 'thick' ticket. Another driver complained about having paid for a ticket that wasn't issued. Just as well I had a spare - but watch out as it's against the rules to give a ticket to another driver.....
I'm quite concerned that 92 people cannot read are in cars!
Whilst I'm not perfect, I could make out the difference of the 2 tickets even when they weren't attached.
Epic Fail on the 92's part if 14,000 got it right.
Mrs DaPoint
says...
11:45am Fri 3 Feb 12
New machines issued a voucher, which resembles a ticket. People would take this and walk away. Machine then issues a ticket.
(In other car parks where a voucher is issued, this usually is printed after, and attached to, the ticket).
The problem, and eventual solution was bleedin' obvious.
There are some real smart Alec's on here who I hope, one day, get caught out to their detriment.
gpn01
says...
4:47pm Fri 3 Feb 12
s6blr wrote:If you put the money in a Car Park Ticket Machine and it prints something out, you (not unreasonably) may assume it's a ticket. True, if you stick around to discover that it prints two "tickets" this may pique your interest enough for you to then look at the first one and wonder why a second one has been printed. However, the default behaviour of most machines is to print the ticket first and then print any other stuff (if I purchase a train ticket a similar process occurs whereby it prints a ticket then it prints a receipt).
I'm quite concerned that 92 people cannot read are in cars! Whilst I'm not perfect, I could make out the difference of the 2 tickets even when they weren't attached. Epic Fail on the 92's part if 14,000 got it right.
.
14,000 didn't "get it right" - WDC hasn't stated that the 14,000 relates specifically to the time only when the confusion arose. In fact they've been quite "economical with the truth" with this number. It's feasible (albeit unlikely!) that the flawed system caught out the first 92 people who used it and then it was fixed and subsequently 13,908 used it and didn't have a problem because it was no longer broken.
.
As mentioned elsewhere, the 92 people didn't fail to pay for parking they simply put the wrong bit of paper in the windscreen. As such, WDC should acknowledge this and not charge people a £50 fine.
piran
says...
11:35am Sat 4 Feb 12
GeoranToon
says...
3:51pm Sat 4 Feb 12
If a motorist has paid for parking and can prove it, then the fine should be quashed as a matter of course.
Guidance should also allow motorists a reasonable window to get change for the meter.
See: www.telegraph.co.uk/
motoring/news
How to fight a parking ticket
Ralph Malph says...
5:35pm Tue 31 Jan 12
Stupid people do something stupid and blame someone else.