The Prankster visits Leigh Delamere

Following the discovery of the X-Ray camera, The Prankster visited Leigh Delamere to see for himself. He visited twice, once to check the camera, then a second time to get pictures of signage. No doubt he is at risk of getting a ticket for overstaying due to CP Plus's defective technology, but luckily he has plenty of witnesses he visited twice, plus pictures of his vehicle elsewhere.

The exit camera on the eastbound side is indeed obscured by a tree. The branch moves in the wind, so sometimes the camera is not obscured; at other times it is.

Now you see it

Now you don't

The terms and conditions do not appear to be in line with current regulations. The Prankster is reluctant to revisit in case he gets wheelclamped and is forced to pay a £90 release fee.

The signage does not appear to correspond to the signage map produced by CP Plus for POPLA hearings.

Notice the over-sized blobs, designed to give the impression that signage is plentiful. Several blobs are in the middle of the bays, giving the impression that the signage is placed in positions where it will be easily visible.

Here is The Prankster version. Signage is shown 6 times actual size, otherwise it would be hard to spot on the map (just like it is in real life). The two purple lines represent entrance signage.One is sited behind a tree and hard to spot. These are 1 and 3 on the CP Plus map. 1 is not sited correctly on the CP Plus map.

The red lines are the terms and conditions (4 on the CP Plus map). None are in the middle of the bays as shown on the CP Plus map. The green lines are pay by phone instructions (5) and the orange reminder signs (6). 

All signage is facing 90 degrees from the direction of travel, apart from the entrance signs hidden behind trees and the sign at the entrance to the building. many signs are on very high poles and difficult to read. Drivers just using the car park to sleep will therefore never spot the signage even exists. Other drivers have one chance to spot the entrance sign at they enter the building.

Spot the one visible sign facing the driver.

Several areas have no signage at all, which violates BPA Ltd guidelines which state signage should be visible from all parking bay. The entrance signage is not compliant with the required format. It contains far too much information to be read at speed, and the font size, apart from the information that there is 2 hours free parking, is too small. It also contains information not repeated elsewhere.

Google Streetview visited the site in 2010, showing the signage to be essentially unchanged between 2010 and the present day.

The Prankster does not know why CP Plus deliberately deceived POPLA regarding the signage. However, it is a general rule for the disreputable elements of the parking industry that lying is acceptable behavior if it get the result you want. The map they submitted to POPLA was in this case sufficient to deceive the assessor, Nozir Uddin, who stated 'I am satisfied that the terms and conditions of parking would have been visible to the Appellant from the signage on site' and rejected the appeal. 

CP Plus will therefore no doubt be pleased with Ranger Services who submitted the appeal on their behalf.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

CP Plus trial new X-ray cameras

The Prankster has previously blogged that ANPR cameras are inherently flawed because they do not have X-ray capability. They can therefore miss vehicles entering or leaving if the number plate is blocked, resulting in a parking charge being issued for one long stay even if two short stays actually occur. Parking operators therefore need to be sensitive to this, and cancel tickets when this occurs.

It looks like CP Plus have tried to address this problem and are trialing cameras with X-Ray vision, capable of seeing through solid objects. Here is part of a parking charge issued using one of the new cameras.

The new camera can apparently see right through the leaf and read the number plate, and so CP Plus issued a charge to the vehicle they thought it belonged to.

As it happens there may be a few teething problems with the new technology. The keeper of the car which was charged knew the vehicle was not parked at the times alleged and so has appealed.

Anyone else who has received a ticket at Leigh Delamere service station on the M4 may want to send this picture in to POPLA to prove that the set up is flawed and that CP Plus is liable to issue tickets for two stays when only one occurred. Vehicle entry and exits will be missed due to the camera being obscured.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

BPA Ltd lock horns with the Daily Mail

The British Parking Association have responded to the Daily Mail articles exposing cowboy parking companies.

To summarise for those who need to get up to speed:

The Daily Mail:
Pointed out MET Parking use a firm of debt collectors, Roxburghe, ruled unfit to hold a credit licence by the office of fair trading.
Pointed out that the managing director of Roxburghe is Gary Osner who sits on the board of the BPA.
Pointed out MET Parking used a firm of solicitors, GPB Solicitors, which was shut down because of staff dishonesty
Exposed MET Parking for issuing tickets for 'motorist left site' when they were still in the restaurant
Exposed ParkingEye for giving a ticket to a cancer sufferer who was 13 seconds late
Reported that cowboy tactics, scaremongering and bullying were used by many private parking companies
Pointed out that as the British Parking Association is paid for by the parking industry, this is like inmates guarding the jail
Pointed out that MET parking were one of 6 firms who had access to the DVLA suspended in 2012
Pointed out that MET parking issued a ticket to a motorist who suffered a medical emergency
Pointed out that UKPC train its wardens to target cancer wards
Pointed out that ParkingEye issued a ticket to a pensioner visiting hospital for a 13 second overstay.
Pointed out that Gemini Parking Solutions issued a ticket to a motorist giving birth with complications.
Pointed out that UKPC issued a ticket to a mother whose two year old child was having fits
Pointed out that ParkingEye issued a ticket to a mother recovering from a heart attack in hospital
Pointed out that PCP Enforcement Agency issued a ticket to a mother taking her child to hospital for violent stomach pains.

Pointed out that the BPA, in theory, is responsible for policing parking companies

The BPA Ltd
Rehashed a 2012 quote from Patrick Troy.
Stated there is much to be proud of in the Protection of Freedom Act 2012, but that the regulations do not go far enough
Stated that an appeal service not binding on all operators is a recipe for confusion
Stated that a ban on clamping is no substitute for proper regulation.
Stated that the ban on wheel-clamping was ill conceived
Pointed out that the AA is not a member of the BPA
Advised motorists to check parking conditions before leaving their car
Advised motorists not to ignore Parking Charge Notices.
Accused the Daily Mail of undermining the validity of parking tickets, and stymieing the rights of landowners
Accused the government of being rogues for failing to regulate
Accused the dailiy mail of being rogues for running an ill-conceived campaign.

The Parkster will now referee

The Prankster detects the hand of Patrick Troy in this response. Patrick Troy is the master of answering questions he has not been asked, and deflecting concerns from the main issues. This was apparent from his recent appearance on Watchdog. If the response is not from Mr Troy, he has surely trained up his minions well in the art of the non-answer.

Perhaps Gary Osner had a hand in the reply. Although Gary Osner is the managing director of Roxburghe, (an unfit company) he is also a board member of the BPA. During the the BPA AGM on 2nd July 2014, Gary Osner was awarded a fellowship of the BPA denoting him as a role model for the profession demonstrating leadership qualities, a significant contribution to the parking profession as well as championing the raising of standards and promoting continuing professional development. Gary Osner now sits on the board of the BPA for 2014/5.

Another person awarded a fellowship was Anjina Patel. Anjina recently starred in the TV series 'Parking mad'. You may not have recognised her, because she used the false name Kira Fleck during the programme.

The BPA reply misses the point of the Daily Mail articles. There are clearly rogue elements in the parking industry, as evidenced by the examples shown in the articles. The BPA should not be seeing this as an attack on the entire industry - merely a timely highlight of the problems the industry faces, and a wake up call to the BPA.

The Daily Mail is not attacking all parking tickets - merely the rogue elements in the parking sector.

It is ironic that the BPA stated 'a ban on clamping is no substitute for proper regulation' and then blamed the government for failing to regulate the industry. According to the DVLA, it expects the industry trade associations, of which the BPA is one (the other being the IPC), to regulate its members. That the BPA is obviously failing to do this, as evidenced by the Daily Mail report, is not a reason for the government to introduce more regulation. Rather it is a wake-up call for the BPA to begin policing its own members. Failing that, the DVLA needs to step in and remove the Accredited status from the BPA.

The Prankster has helped many motorists who have had problems, and time and again the BPA has washed their hands of the matter, stating it does not have the power to force operators to cancel tickets, and refusing to hand out sanctions for misbehavior

The Prankster looks forward to the DVLA requiring the BPA to actually police the sector,.

Happy Parking

Daily Mail expose ParkingEye lies

A while back ParkingEye tried to gag The Prankster, sending a series of harassing and threatening letters from Katie Mickleburgh of legal firm Hill Dickinson.

In one letter she wrote:

You allege [...] that our client issues parking charges for very short overstays and does not allow a five minute grace period. [...] This is simply untrue.

The Daily Mail today highlighted the case of a pensioner charged by ParkingEye for an overstay of 13 seconds. This is the shortest overstay the Prankster is aware of, shorter even than the ones he highlighted.

The Prankster is now running a sweepstake on whether it is more likely that Hill Dickinson will threaten to sue the Daily Mail for causing "immense damage to our client's reputation", or whether Katie Mickleburgh will write to The Prankster to apologise for being taken in by ParkingEye's lies.

Katie's biography page states she is strong in "ensuring matters are dealt with swiftly and efficiently, reaching the most cost effective conclusion". She is therefore no doubt suitably embarrassed with the error-filled letters she wrote to The Prankster, and the subsequent self-inflicted damage to her own reputation. The most cost effective conclusion was of course, to advise her client not to threaten to sue for damages if the facts they are unhappy about are true.

Katie will have learned an important lesson - never trust anything ParkingEye say. ParkingEye have regularly told lies to the court, to POPLA, to their customers, to the motoring public and of course, to their own legal representatives.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

DVLA perpetuate myth that they make a loss on providing keeper information to parking companies

There has been yet another report stating that the DVLA lose money in providing keeper details to parking companies.

The report states that there was a shortfall last year or around £900,000 in providing this information, and that while the parking companies were charged £2.50 per request, it actually cost £2.84.

In fact, this is a myth, peddled by the DVLA's Department of Misinformation, otherwise know as the Data Sharing Team. Hugh Evans, Corporate Affairs Director of the DVLA, will be smiling into his coffee this morning when his minions report that yet another newspaper, along with the AA and the RAC, have brought into this fiction.

In fact, requesting keeper details is a completely automated process for most parking companies. They send an electronic request to the DVLA, which sends the results back. This is all done by computers, and the individual cost is therefore minimal, a fraction of a penny at best.

While some requests are done manually, these are minimal.

So how do the DVLA bump up the cost?

They assign the running cost of the computers, staff costs building costs and all other costs they can think of to the pot. At first glance, this seems fair. After all, shouldn't the cost of, for instance, running the computers be allocated to the PPCs as well?

The problem is, the computers and everything else are used for far more than just providing keeper details to parking companies.

They are also used for providing keeper details to police and councils, processing car log books, processing MOT, and insurance information, providing statistics to the government, answering FoI request...the list goes on.

By incorrectly allocating as much expense as possible to the parking companies the DVLA make them look bad and the DVLA look good. The actual cost allocations are a closely guarded secret, and FoI requests have been rebuffed each time that they attempt to find out the cost modelling that produced these figures.

The DVLA employ a specific person, Robert Toft, whose job is to stonewall requests, using every bureaucratic trick in the book to make it difficult to get information out of the DVLA. He is remarkably successful in this role, and must surely be in line for several performance award for the way he deftly frustrates and confuses every attempt to get answers from the DVLA.

He is the master of answering a different question to the one which has been asked, dragging out replies to the maximum timescales allowed, and deliberately providing incorrect or misleading information. The Prankster congratulates Hugh Evans in the placement of Robert Toft in his position of gatekeeper for the Department of Misinformation within the DVLA.

The actual information released has been minimal.

FoI replies show there were around 2.6 million requests, costing around £2.84 per request or £7.4 million overall. The breakdown for these costs are given as

Direct costs (including salaries, postage and printing) £1.46 per request, £3,796,000 overall
IT costs £0.78, £2,028,000 overall
Overheads and development costs £0.60 per request, £1,560,000 overall

Although most of the requests are electronic there are around 300,000 manual keeper requests a year. However, the DVLA have admitted they have no idea how many of these are made by private parking companies, and it likely that the vast majority of these are not.

Since postage and printing are only required for manual requests, we could assign a reasonable cost of £1 pr print and post a reply. Even if all 300,000 requests were made by private parking companies this leaves £3,496,000 for salaries, or around 100 full-time people at an average guesstimated salary of £35,000. This is of course, a ridiculous number just to service private parking requests.

IT running costs of £2 million are surprising seeing as wikipediae reports that the database originally cost £5 million to build under contract to EDS in 1996.

It is not entirely obvious what 'development' is necessary, since there have been no apparent changes for a while.

The figures therefore, simply cannot be trusted.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

UK Parking Solution claim an unlikely amount of experience

Parking Company UK Parking Solution are claiming an unlikely amount of experience on their website.

UK Parking Solution is one of the UK's fastest growing car park management company. The directors of the company have over 27 years combined experience & extensive knowledge of all aspects of good car park management on private land.

This seems a flight of fancy. Lower down, the page shows 'UK Parking Solutions is only a trading name of TR Luckins Ltd.

TR LUCKINS LIMITED trading as UK Parking Solutions
Registered Office: Carlton House, Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire NN10 8 BW

TR Luckins only has one director, Thomas Roy Luckins, who appears to be 21 years old. That leaves the company 6 years shy of experience even if Mr Luckins started issuing tickets in the delivery room.

The company did have another director, Thomas's father Graham John Luckins, who is 50. However, Graham only lasted one day before retiring.

Telling porkies is sadly par for the course in the parking industry; there is even a name for it - ParkingLies.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

Cambridge judge fooled by ParkingEye lies

It seems like judges in Cambridge are building up a reputation for being easily fooled by ParkingEye.

In this latest case ParkingEye issued a ticket for a time when the vehicle was not even there. This is a well-know scam of theirs, with plenty of reported instances in The Prankster's blog and papers all over the country.

The scam works when vehicles visit twice but the cameras for whatever reason do not read the number plate correctly for each visit. The most common reason is if the plate is obscured by a pedestrian or other vehicle, but can also be due to a misread - number plate recognition is only required to be 85% accurate.

Most judges are wise to this scam, and several court cases have been dismissed when ParkingEye tried this on.

However, judges in Cambridge are gaining a reputation for being particularly gullible, willing to swallow whatever nonsense ParkingEye spoons down their throat.

In this particular case the motorist even had a witness to the fact the vehicle visited twice. However, sadly the first hearing was adjourned. When the case was finally heard, the witness was out of the country and not available.

Deputy District Judge Beamish preferred to believe the lies from ParkingEye's paid stooge from LPC Law, rather than the truth from the motorist, and enforced the claim.

Prankster Analysis

Just because your witness is not physically available does not mean they cannot be used. Get the witness to write a short witness statement, and submit this as evidence. The statement should contain the name and address of  the witness, numbered statements, and be signed and dated as a statement of truth.

The Prankster website also contains technical papers you can submit as evidence to show how the ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) scam works, and lists of cases where judges have recognised the scam and thrown the case out.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster