NoParkingFine hit the headlines last week after revealing that two-thirds of parking fines are probably illegal.
However, it is Britain’s fleet operators that are the biggest victims of parking fines, having probably paid millions of pounds on legally invalid parking fines, claims the parking fine advisory company.
Safiya Hussain, director of NoParkingFine, says that a huge proportion of parking fines are issued to companies with fleets, yet such companies rarely do anything effective to appeal them.
They may have administrative staff who would deal with the payment of the fines yet no legal expert to say ‘hang on, should we legally have to pay this?’ As a result of, she says a company that received 100 parking fines in a year could have saved itself £5,000 and a company that received 5,000 parking fines in the year could have saved itself almost £270,000.
“The statistics are incredible,” said Hussain. “In these economic times, with fuel prices and all other costs rising, companies can ill afford to throw this amount of money down the drain.”
She added: “The general feeling is that parking wardens tend to specifically target ‘commercial vehicles’ knowing that due to volume and practice, such parking fines are less likely to be questioned and can sneak into the administrative processes of these entities unnoticed.”
NoParkingFine urges fleet managers and fleet management companies not to take the under-handed tactics of the parking authorities lying down and consider the legal validity of all parking fine, as there’s a 67% chance of winning.
Patriot - 31/01/2011 11:42
This article validates my comments on the forum that 99% of Fleet Managers display a woeful lack of knowledge about the parking regulations. I am surprised that switched on FD's do not query such payments. They must have money to burn.