Caught out: Taxi driver is clamped after checking Dorchester notices
10:30am Saturday 14th May 2011
A taxi driver is outraged after her vehicle was clamped while she checked the warning notices in a Dorchester street.
Adelaide Mondim, who owns Charlton Down Taxis, stopped in Somerleigh Road and stepped out of her nine-seater taxi to read the warning notices because she could not see them from her vehicle.
She described how she turned around just minutes later to see a man running over to her car to clamp it.
Mrs Mondim, 47, had to pay £255 have her vehicle released – the penalty price for a heavy goods vehicle, which she said was an inaccurate fee.
The payment receipt issued by the company, Premier Parking Services, shows that Mrs Mondim was outside her vehicle for just two minutes.
She said: “I was early for a job so I stopped the car to have a cigarette.
“I got out to read the warning sign because I couldn’t see it from where I was.
“When I turned around I saw a guy running over to my car to clamp it. I wasn’t parked, I hadn’t left the car – I was just reading the sign and the guy knew that because he could see me.
“I phoned up Premier Parking Services and they said if I had been clamped, I had to pay.
“I felt helpless.”
She added: “I had to go back to Somerleigh Road later that day to pick someone up and I could see the guy hiding in an archway.
“Then I saw him clamping someone else.
“These clampers are bullies and just absolutely unreasonable.”
Mrs Mondim went to seek advice from the Citizens Advice Bureau.
The CAB advice on legal camping is that:
• There must be notices up where you can clearly see them warning that unauthorised vehicles will be clamped.
• The landowner must not charge more than a reasonable fee to release.
• The vehicle must be released as soon as you have said you will pay the release fee.
But Mrs Mondim argues that the sign was not clear because in order to read it she had to get out of her vehicle.
She also said she was not charged a reasonable fee because she was charged within the wrong vehicle category.
Mrs Mondim added the clamper only released her vehicle after she had paid.
She said: “When it happened, I had a job to take seven elderly people to a funeral and I couldn’t wait so I had to pay.
“I am outraged, it’s just unbelievable.”
Mrs Mondim said she would be writing a formal letter of the complaint to Premier Parking Services.
She said: “I’m going to fight this – it is absolutely illegal.”
Premier Parking Services refused to comment.
Source; http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/902754 ... r_notices/
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