Parking fine payouts on way?

By Marc Mustard

30th June 2006

The AA Motoring Trust says that drivers who successfully appeal against parking tickets should be compensated by the issuing council for all the inconvenience involved in challenging the fines.

In 2004 – the last year for which figures are available – there were nearly 20,500 driver appeals in the UK which went uncontested by the authorities. If the AA proposals are taken up, parking enforcement firms could be forced to pay out as much as £2million a year to wronged motorists! Paul Watters, spokesman for the AA Motoring Trust, said: “Why should drivers have to go through weeks of worry and not be compensated after they were ticketed when restrictions weren’t in force, machines were faulty, or road markings weren’t correct?”

The move comes at a time when parking enforcement methods are being held to account by the Government. The Commons Transport Select Committee is calling for legislation that will end the practice of ticketing for profit and using enforcement to make money. MPs have heard evidence that as many as one in five tickets is issued without proper justification.