I recently walked out of a friend’s house in the middle of England to find a parking ticket on the windscreen of my woman’s car, which I had parked there the night before in a quiet residential street, with no bays or means of paying for visitors; a parking trap to generate revenue for the local council, if ever I saw one.
Within 72 hours, the Fixed Penalty Notice was returned to the issuers with the following written on it in large red capital letters:
REFUSED FOR CAUSE WITHOUT DISHONOUR
WITHOUT PREJUDICE WITHOUT RECOURSE
A few weeks later, I parked the car in the same street for about fifteen hours in total. Just before I headed for home, I returned with my friend and his dog from a walk through the park on a beautiful sunny day to find two parking bandits standing by the car. From a distance of about 100 metres they seemed to be sratching their heads.
We took a detour to the local shop for provisions and made our way back down the street to find the wardens had gone, but not before leaving a ticket on a car that was not parked on the street when I parked there the night before. It was just a few metres from my woman’s car, which, for some strange reason, had escaped the customary attempt to enforce an invalid claim.
More than five months later, my woman has still not received a NOTICE TO OWNER. In actual fact, she has not received anything relating to the alleged offence, which we are more than happy to presume to be the parking bandit’s silent agreement that their offer was refused for cause and returned without dishonour within 3 days, and they do not have ANY recourse to challenge the action.
In late July 2009, I found another parking ticket, this time stuck to the windscreen of my car, which was parked on the street outside our house. In spite of the fact that there was also a note on the windscreen, informing any passing parking bandit that the car’s battery was flat and that it would be moved within 24 hours, the ticket was still issued. Almost three months after refusing it for cause in the prescribed manner, there has been no NOTICE TO OWNER issued.
