Taxi Driver Online

Taxi driver issued with £100 parking fine while helping disabled passengers in Morecambe

A Morecambe taxi driver who pulled into the town's Pleasureland car park for only 11 minutes to pick up a disabled fare is fuming after being hit with a £100 fine.

Andrew Smith, who works for Coastal Taxis Ltd, arrived outside the premier family entertainment arcade to find six people waiting, plus two disabled passengers with a wheelchair and a mobility scooter.

The 63-year-old has a specially-adapted cab to allow wheelchair access and it took him a few minutes to unload the platform ramp and call for another taxi as all passengers could not fit into his vehicle. All in all, he claims he was parked at the car park for only 11 minutes. During this time, the number plate of his taxi was captured on the car park's CCTV run by Parkingeye - a car park management company.

The incident happened in October last year and Andrew, who has been a taxi driver in Morecambe for the past 16 years, was shocked when a few days later he received a parking charge notice. He has since appealed the fine, however, due to the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, there's been a delay in him receving a response.

He explained: "I drive a specially-adapted taxi and Coastal Taxis Ltd sent me to a wheelchair job to pick up behind Pleasureland. When I arrived there, I found six people and two disabled carriages. I told them that unfortunately I cannot accommodate both the wheelchair and mobility scooter and will have to ring back to the office and request another taxi. During this time, I unloaded the wheelchair ramp and carefully helped the vulnerable passengers into my taxi, as well as securing the wheelchair. This took approximately 11 minutes and I couldn't believe it when a few days later I received a fine for £100. I was absolutely outraged and it's terrible that firms are allowed to do this! £100 is a lot of money and it was a very threatening letter. The taxi business has suffered a lot during the pandemic and initialy when I returned to work after the lockdown, my hours had to be reduced. This fine has really stressed me out."

Andrew added: "I appealed to POPLA - an independent appeals service for Parking Charge Notices issued on private land. I had to wait months before finding out my appeal was unsuccessful, with my job sheet and my event of what I was doing there. I did not use car park for my personal purposes and didn't see any warning signs. I was just doing my job and picking up vulnerable people. It's a disgrace."

Responding, a spokesman for Parkingeye said: "The motorist used the car park without paying and as a consequence he was sent a parking charge notice. All motorists are entitled to appeal via POPLA, the independent body which reviews all cases.

"The car park has 19 prominent signs throughout clearly stating that motorists need to pay for parking, as well as information on all payment methods.

"We encourage all motorists to use the parking facilities responsibly and to read the signs before deciding if they wish to park."

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IDFIMH

A lot of time these stories are a pack of mistruths by the driver, but in this case I think he is 100% telling the truth.

Problem he has got is he is dealing with Parking Eye and POPLA, thus he is pi**ing in the wind when he tries to explain the situation.

Best bet is to wait until he gets his case decided in the County Court, which happens less than 1-2% of the time.

Sadly most drivers just pay up. Personally I would be happy to pay a lawyer a £1000 to represent me than pay those scum sucking pond life a bean.

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IDFIMH

Not seeing warning signs is no defence in law but proving he wasn't parking but loading would as I doubt the signs said no loading

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

Not good, but if he's been a driver in the town for 16 years then presumably he knew he would get a ticket here?

Only thing I can think of is that there is a grace period, but he's taken longer than usual, thus they've ticketed him. No mention of the other vehicle getting a ticket, so maybe the other vehicle didn't take so long?

Or maybe they've changed their procedures from wardens or similar, to cameras, so a warden wouldn't charge for loading and unloading, while a camera system won't be so forgiving.

But I'm assuming there's a grace period with the camera system, but that the featured driver exceeded the grace period, but the second driver in the pick-up didn't

He was there 11 minutes, so maybe the grace period is 10 minutes...

He could have been there 11 minutes or 3 minutes, the scammers don't give a dam.

The parking companies and their so called overseers POPLA couldn't care less.

They make money out of scamming and scaring ordinary people, and hopefully the Tories will eventually get around to sorting them out.

The sooner the better.

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IDFIMH

Do not think the Tories will do anything about these scammers, in all probability they will be up to their necks in it.

It's actually coming in next year.

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IDFIMH

they might see it as the driver trying to scam them and get away with parking for a few minutes

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector