Parking staff are let down by fine mess (From Bucks Free Press)

Parking staff are let down by fine mess

4:50pm Saturday 4th February 2012 in Comment

WYCOMBE District Council is letting down every Parking attendant in the area, as well as the public it serves, by its staunch refusal to refund fines imposed on 92 motorists who mistakenly displayed the wrong part of a Parking ticket at Sainsbury’s in Marlow.

The Free Press entirely understands the difficult line local authorities have to tread where fines in general are concerned. Many drivers feel hard-done by after making errors that lead to penalties and it would be impractical to let everyone off.

We also acknowledge parking attendants do a valuable and difficult job. As much as the public may moan at them, we expect them to be there when we need to clear dangerously-parked cars from outside our schools, shops and homes.

Furthermore, we accept the council’s attendants were correct to penalise the 92 cars which displayed the Sainsbury’s refund voucher instead of the actual ticket between December 1 and December 20.

But once this clear pattern of errors emerged, it was up to the council’s officers to sort the mess out and give the necessary fine exemptions. After all, this very same council must have acknowledged there was an issue, because it changed the machines after motorists complained.

However, the council is sticking to its guns, pointing out only 0.6 motorists who bought tickets made this mistake. But the fact remains this human error was made by almost 100 people, which surely proves the system was confusing. Furthermore, possibly all these drivers can prove they paid for a ticket, so what’s the problem?

The council points out aggrieved drivers have the right to go to the Parking Adjudicator. But to do that, they have to effectively give up their right to the £25 discount and risk paying the whole £50 fine instead. In other words, double or quits folks.

The worst part of this is that it perpetuates the dislike of the system, and continues to fuel the myth that parking attendants are merely there to try to catch us out.

We don’t believe they are and we think they do a good job. But they are being undermined by the back office systems of near zero tolerance against any errant driver, however well-intentioned that driver may be. This is simply unfair and the council should be ashamed of its failure to do the right thing for its public.