Parking in England at the motorway services

Alfrla · Jul 16, 2013

I was in England a couple of years ago and drove to Cornwall. We stopped a couple of times for coffee and parhed our car. There was always a notice saying you could only park up to 2 hours. Somebody explained to me that the cars were photographed entering the parkplace and that it was quite normal to reduce parking time to two hours. Is this still true? I will have german number plates, will that be a help?

Adrian

barry · Jul 16, 2013

Alfrla said:
I was in England a couple of years ago and drove to Cornwall. We stopped a couple of times for coffee and parhed our car. There was always a notice saying you could only park up to 2 hours. Somebody explained to me that the cars were photographed entering the parkplace and that it was quite normal to reduce parking time to two hours. Is this still true? I will have german number plates, will that be a help?

Adrian

Third party firms operate the entry and exit photo scans from which those number plates with more than 2 hours on them are listed. This happens in many supermarket car parks too (and in Scotland and Wales).

The third party firms follow up by post to the legal owner's address with a demand for a fee. A follow up demand with a tripled fee comes if the first one is not responded to. Then it is handed to a debt collecting agency who send more aggressive demands and might even land on the legal owner's doorstep. Dunno whether they'd go to Germany though :lol:

Some motorway service areas offer a chance to pay up front (about £10) by mobile phone when parked if you want to stay overnight. Quite cheap really.

There is no legal requirement to respond to any of these demands so the police are not involved.

I've had a demand and a follow up demand on three occasion with the Cali and ignored them all. The last one was months ago. On each occasion I'd stayed less than 3 hours.

(Hope you don't get intercepted on the ferry home - or in the tunnel :thumb

)

calikev · Jul 16, 2013

I agree with Barry they can't enforce the parking fine they work on the principle you will pay up without a fight if you do get a letter throw it in the bin

HistoryBob · Jul 16, 2013

A word of warning. The following happened to a friend of mine. He overstayed the time limit on a supermarket car park and subsequently received a postal fine which he ignored. Some weeks later he visited a town about 15miles away park up and went shopping. When he returned to his car he had been clamped. Turns out the company who run the parking was the same one who he had chose to ignore previously. They had a record of his car number and the fact he hadn't paid up flagged up on their system, so they came in, clamped him and demanded there original fine plus a further amount to release the clamp. They have the technology and will use it.

barry · Jul 16, 2013

HistoryBob said:
A word of warning. The following happened to a friend of mine. He overstayed the time limit on a supermarket car park and subsequently received a postal fine which he ignored. Some weeks later he visited a town about 15miles away park up and went shopping. When he returned to his car he had been clamped. Turns out the company who run the parking was the same one who he had chose to ignore previously. They had a record of his car number and the fact he hadn't paid up flagged up on their system, so they came in, clamped him and demanded there original fine plus a further amount to release the clamp. They have the technology and will use it.

unlucky

Alfrla · Jul 31, 2013

Only another two days and we will be on our way to England

The ferry arrives at 6:30 am in Dover and then we have a drive down to Newquay. Any ideas about how long it will take to drive the distance.

Best wishes from Bavaria / Germany

Adrian

Californiaman · Jul 31, 2013

That is a good 5/6 hour drive I would imagine. Worth it though!

Oggie · Jul 31, 2013

I recently stopped in the services on m4 from 1.30am to 7.30 am and just received a fine. Tempted to ignore it after reading some of these posts, anyone been through similar?

With all the road signs reminding you to take a break if you're tired, seems a bit cheeky to then fine you for doing it

?

Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using Tapatalk 2

calikev · Aug 1, 2013

I would ignore it :thumb

you will recieve 3 letters ignore them
They will not persue it im sure just deny it was you parking it there

reserves · Aug 9, 2013

Just turn off the motorway, plenty of friendlier / nicer places to stay for a few hours on the way to Cornwall!

Alfrla · Aug 19, 2013

Well we finally got to England

On the ferry between Calais and Dover we were handed out a notice concerning two things: first notice was about anti glare stickers for the front lights. Everyone was buying them but we didn´t bother to. We didn´t get stopped by the police in England so either we were lucky or our headlights dont glare. The second notice was realy weird. France has passed a law that every car has to have a breathalyzer in it. It wan´t a joke either!

The trip from Dover to Newquay was 9 1/2 hours.. traffic jams all the way. Diesel is expensive in England!! We had expected this so we had tanked in France and easily got to Newquay on it. The Cali Beach 80 liter tank is a good size but hits your pocket when its empty and needs to be filled up.

We were surrpised to see so many really old VW buses in England, Germany has hardly any at all. Some of the busses looked like they were highly taken care of but some were falling apart at the seams.

All in all we had a good holiday in England but the temperature did´nt go above 22c... quite cold!! When we crossed the french border into Germany it was just past midnight but the outside temperature was 25c

Next time we will either head out for Wales or Scotland!

Adrian

calikev · Aug 19, 2013

Hi Adrian I'm glad you had a good time here in england :thumb

Andy80F · Aug 19, 2013

If you think England is cold prepare for Scotland, always a few degrees less at the best of times. However Scotland and England are different in many ways, different land mass and perhaps more rugged scenery. Would not claim it to be better just different but most definitely cooler.

Alfrla · Aug 19, 2013

Calikev said:
Hi Adrian I'm glad you had a good time here in england

Thank you!! All i have to do now is work on getting better weather next time

Stu · Aug 19, 2013

Oggie said:
I recently stopped in the services on m4 from 1.30am to 7.30 am and just received a fine. Tempted to ignore it after reading some of these posts, anyone been through similar?

With all the road signs reminding you to take a break if you're tired, seems a bit cheeky to then fine you for doing it ?

Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using Tapatalk 2

I had one of these for parking in the car park at the IoW ferry in a bay that wasn't, apparently, for normal people to park it.

As many people have said these tickets are not especially legally enforceable and rely on scare tactics with big numbers to worry you. I ignored mine and didn't even get a follow up.

Some operators have changed the wording on their signage which says says that by parking your vehicle you agree to enter into a contractual arrangement.

The best way out of them if it worries you is to make them a paltry (by their standards) relative offer so for example if it's £10 for 24 hours then a fair offer for 12 hours is £5. This puts the law back on your side should they try to pursue it.