Why You Should Appeal Against A Parking Fine

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Analyzing the number of parking tickets issued in recent times, it can be seen that there's a huge increase in the same as much as four times! So essentially one in every ten motorists is getting a parking ticket. What's more, amidst such hard times, the government is also talking about hiking the parking fine amount. All in the name of road safety, but is it really that?

The responsibility of enforcing parking regulations was shifted to the local councils from the police during 200-2001. Likewise the parking tickets issued during that time was 794,851 which went up in later years to as high as 3,402,860 in 2005, a record increase of 19% from that of 2004. People usually consider this to be a mere instrument in the hands of the local council to earn some extra income rather than for road safety purposes.

The top position for highest no. of parking ticket issued goes to the town of Birmingham with 176,382 tickets. Thereafter, Brighton and Hove follow closely with 160,018 tickets, Manchester with 136,005, Liverpool with 92,642 and Nottingham with 75,350 tickets respectively. Councils should stop playing "fast and loose" with the legal constraints on the tickets - says The National Parking Adjudication Service, the body which deals with motorist appeals.

NPAs handle the appeal process after it has exhausted at the local council level.

The NPAS approved of 57% of the appeals which came via parking ticket appeal companies it dealt with in 2006. Using these private services can ensure a motorist that the appeal will easily get through without heading the direction of NPAS at all.

In 1991, The Road Traffic Act was passed which facilitated "decriminalised parking" wherein councils could enforce parking restrictions in their area and fix higher revenues. Hence, every year the parking fine amounts has increased along with the ruthless and deviousness of councils and traffic wardens respectively. There are even stories of cars having double lines painted under them getting a parking ticket.

Sometimes, motorists who have simply gone to get change for paying for their tickets are issued parking tickets by the immoral traffic wardens. NPAs have criticized the councils on this immoral conduct.

A motorist thus would usually be stuck behind a fumbling driver suffering an indecisive moment in front of the pay and display machine. Common sense should be used and the motorist not be ticketed.

A motorist can get a parking ticket under almost any circumstances. NPAs state that some councils believe that the exact change should be present on a motorist when he enters any car park under any circumstances.

Appealing is by far the best thing to do in these situations, since one must realize that councils are almost always wrong as they blindly apply parking regulations and only appealing can stop them from such motorist harassment.

The traffic wardens are almost always forced to give out the maximum no. of parking tickets possible leading to most of the tickets being issued without any legal basis. In short, the more chance you have to identify loopholes and win your case.

A common misconception amongst the motorists is that the appeal letter one needs to write is an extremely lengthy and complicated affair. But this is far from the truth as you just need a basic and simple letter to get your ticket cancelled and in your endeavor, a lot of help can be got form online sources by way of samples and templates.

Your first job is to draft the appeal letter in a few short and simple paragraphs, the first one stating that you have been wrongly ticketed while the following ones communicating the reasons for it. Remember never to use any rude words or technical jargon in your letter. Essentially, it must be an easy read, created in a polite manner.

Remember that photographic evidence works best in case of such appeals. Some of the reasons that you can state would be that you hadn't been driving at that time, your car was stolen, it suffered a breakdown or that there wasn't enough road markings or signs to tell you about the parking restrictions.

SOURCE : http://goarticles.com/article/Why-You-Should-Appeal-Against-A-Parking-Fine/5479385/