UK drivers could be handed a record 14,500,000 parking fines by parking companies this year.
Forecast by the motoring expert RAC estimates that drivers pay around £4,100,000 each day in fines to private parking operators, issued at around £100 per fine.
Parking companies made 7,200,000 requests to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) in the six months to the end of September 2024, which is up 12% for the same period year-on-year.
The RAC named the top five companies responsible for almost half of all the fines issued last year.
Motorists claimed that faulty machines are ‘trapping’ drivers and leaving them to deal with trying to challenge the ‘unfair’ fines after issues with printing the correct number plate on a ticket they had bought.
Maurizio Capoccia told Metro previously he was at a funeral on the other side of town when he received a fine saying he had been at a Euro Car Parks at a Sainsbury’s.
He refused to pay the £100 fine and managed to overturn it after getting CCTV footage from the church, but he said he was angered by the ‘injustice’ of the situation.
Mary Hawken, 79, received a parking charge notice (PCN) after using a car park in Cornwall in July last year after issues with the parking ticket she had bought.
She said: ‘I noticed that the WK didn’t print (on my ticket) but I thought, I’ve got a receipt anyway, and the rest of the registration is on it, so that’s fine.
‘A week later I had a PCN. I thought, I’m not paying it, you can take me to court.
‘I religiously pay for car parks. I’m not going to be bullied into this.’
Her fine crept up to £170 before the case was dropped four days after she contacted her MP.
‘Drivers don’t generally set out to break rules’
RAC head of policy Simon Williams commented on the findings: ‘It’s very concerning that private parking firms are growing and on track to issue a record 14.5 million parking charge notices to drivers in the space of just 12 months.
‘As drivers don’t generally set out to break the rules, we fear many are being treated unfairly by private parking companies that are still operating without Government scrutiny.’
He called for a government-backed industry code to be brought in ‘as quickly as possible.’
Industry reaction
However, the British Parking Association’s chief policy and engagement officer Alison Tooze said that while the daily rate of 41,000 tickets ‘may seem like a large number in isolation,’ it should be ‘understood in context.’
Out of drivers who use a private car park in the UK, ‘only 0.3% receive a parking charge,’ she said, adding that 99.7% of people park without an issue.
The increase in number of charges overall over time ‘relates to more car parks under management rather than a higher probability of receiving a parking charge,’ she argued.
Ms Tooze continued: ‘If landowners weren’t finding an increasing need to get parking on their land under control, there would be far less demand for operators.
‘The reason there is demand is simply that a problematic percentage of people do not park considerately and choose to ignore the terms the landowner sets for parking on their land.’
The DVLA charges parking operators £2.50 per record when they request a driver’s details so that a PCN can be sent.
The government agency responsible for licensing said the fees are set to cover the cost of providing the information and that it does not make any money from the process.
We approached ParkingEye, Euro Car Parks, Horizon Parking, Smart Parking and APCOA Parking for a comment.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
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