Motorway services parking tickets
Motorway service stations are a happy hunting ground for private parking companies. Usually motorway services, such as Welcome Break, Moto, and RoadChef, offer free parking for two hours, as they are required to by law. However, should you inadvertently go over the two hour limit, it is almost certain that the keeper of the vehicle will receive a Parking Charge Notice through the post.
Clearly, from a safety perspective, this is disgusting behaviour. People do not tend to stay longer than they have to at a Motorway Service station – if they do it is because they need the rest. So, forcing motorists back out onto the road tired is not only morally wrong, it is also putting theirs and others safety at risk.
These car parks are usually monitored by Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) systems which track each car entering and leaving the site. This means they know precisely how long your car was in the motorway services for, allowing them to immediately issue a ticket. These tickets usually request payment of between £60 and £100, with discounts for early payment. Since the general public do not often understand that private parking tickets do not have any legal backing, as a council-issued ticket would, they pay them.
However, as readers of this site know, that isn’t the case. These tickets are effectively an invoice requesting payment, and are very difficult for a private parking company to enforce. As a result, around one third of these tickets go unpaid.
In this site you can find:
- Information about what private parking tickets are
- Details of how they’re issued and enforced
- A discussion on whether you should pay or not
- Information about the Protection of Freedoms Act and the concept of Keeper Liability
- A fightback guide, including example letters, and a guide on winning your POPLA appeal
Best of luck fighting your parking ticket!
The Parking Cowboys team