How to fight a parking ticket Even if some of the worst excesses have been curbed, much needs to be done. Ministers should review the parking appeal system, which was designed to provide some protection for motorists, and, in fairness, adjudicators have quashed huge numbers of tickets. But they are also upholding tickets that should have been quashed under the guidance that was updated in the 2004 Traffic Management Act. The philosophy underpinning parking control, don't forget, is the fair allocation of road space. Failure to display a permit or a pay-and-display ticket is one of the main reasons that motorists are being fined. They are being fined if the ticket is upside down or has fallen into the well of the car, having been blown there by a gust of wind when the door is shut. Councils also take a dim view of motorists who pass on a pay-and-display ticket to another driver if they leave their bay early. But remember, the use of the bay has been paid for. Why should a council be paid twice for using the same bit of road at the same time? Motorists are frequently fined if they park by a broken meter. This is not justifiable: that stretch of road has been allocated for parking and it is the local authority's responsibility to keep its machinery in a good state of repair. Drivers are receiving fines for overshooting a bay by a couple of inches, even if the bay is ridiculously small. Councils" determination to use the letter of the law to impose tickets has turned many motorists into barrack-room lawyers, seizing on obscure bits of small print to challenge fines, often with considerable success. I have done so myself (see below). The solution lies in the hands of Justine Greening, the Transport Secretary. Her department should have been in a position to step in and block Westminster's cash grab at the earliest opportunity. She should now order her officials to draft new guidance for parking adjudicators, which will give the guidance some teeth. The obvious and simplest change would be to scrap the "failure to display" rule. If a motorist has paid for parking and can prove it, then the fine should be quashed as a matter of course. Guidance should also allow motorists a reasonable window to get change for the meter. I am not arguing for a parking free-for-all, only for the spirit of the original legislation to be enforced. Councils won't like it and the parking industry even less. But that's tough. Twickenham, Erin Baker I use an operational resident's parking permit, which does not have an identifying number plate on it, because I bring home a different test car each week. Unfortunately, because I have to move it from car to car, it has to sit on the dashboard, where it is prone to slipping off. Having slammed the car door one Sunday evening, arms full of toddler and bags, I didn't notice the permit slip into the footwell. Neither did I go back to the car for the rest of the week. On Thursday night, I returned to it, only to find two Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) stuck on the windscreen for failure to display. It later transpired that a third one had been stuck on and had either fallen off or been ripped off for a prank. The upshot was that because I never received the third, when it came to paying it, it was the full £110, rather than the other two at £55 each. I appealed to Richmond council, on the grounds that I have a valid permit and have therefore paid for a space already. I received the following reply: "After looking into the circumstances relating to the issue of the notice and taking into account your comments, I have to inform you that the PCN will not be cancelled for the following reasons: The Civil Enforcement Officer (CEO) issued the PCN detailed above as the vehicle was parked in a resident parking place without clearly displaying a valid resident parking permit issued for that place. The CEO has also confirmed that no mobile phone payment has been made... l must inform you that it is the driver's responsibility to ensure that a permit is clearly displayed, and all details are visible, before leaving the vehicle unattended. It's funny how, when the council's PCN falls off the windscreen, it's still valid, but when my permit falls off the dashboard, it isn't. Croydon, David Millward I persuaded Croydon to rescind a ticket that I had bought from the wrong machine. It was a rare case of a council behaving in a grown-up and sensible manner over what was an understandable mistake made by somebody who did not live in the area. I had parked on a main road and bought a ticket from the nearest machine, which happened to be around the corner in a different zone. For once, a couple of phone calls and a little bit of informal negotiation with one of the senior officers resolved the situation amicably. I have also gone to the adjudicator and had tickets quashed. The first time was after I parked outside my flat in a resident's bay that had been suspended for maintenance work. My sin was to reclaim the bay late in the day, when the work had been carried out and it was no longer needed by the council's contractors. Again I initially opted for the informal route. I rang the council and was told that the ticket would be cancelled. Rather to my surprise, however, the council's parking service doggedly decided to pursue the ticket and would not back down. I won at the adjudicator because my phone call gave me a "legitimate expectation" that the ticket would be quashed.