Quote:
Originally Posted by RH77
I need the exercise, so I don't use them. Around here, if the Police are on routine patrol and catch you, they can smack-down with heavy $$$ tickets for the law breaking. I will wait/hold in those spaces if there are a bunch more remaining -- but it would be on my mind the whole time if I left the car...
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I wouldn't take a place from someone with a genuine disability who needed it - I use them only when the car park is mostly empty. I still have to walk past the fat bloke parked up at the door in the idling 4x4 with the window open, smoking. And of course the people who view being fat and lazy as a disability.
Supermarket car parks are private land here so any road markings on them have about the same authority as spilt paint on the road, the police would not enforce anything relating to them. They will still charge you for dangerous driving or being DUI though. They prosecuted someone for driving on a private camp site whilst over the limit near here recently.
What these places do have is patrols or ANPR (number plate recognition - basically they can read and OCR your plate automatically) cameras. If you break some "rule" (such as staying too long) these people will apply to the DVLA for the name and address of the registered keeper of the car (for a fee) and will send the keeper something which looks like an official parking ticket but is actually an invoice because they say you have entered into a contract by parking there and that includes a penalty for infringement.
Except under UK law a car can't enter into a contract, only the driver can - and that may not have been the registered keeper and the keeper is under no obligation to tell the company who the driver was.
And even if they prove who the driver was again under UK law they can only claim damages under a contract which relate to the actual damage done - which would be the potential loss of shopping by someone who needed a space which considering there are plenty empty would be £0.00.
Mrs A has had one and I've had a couple. They are quite funny because they send all these threatening letters about debt collectors and how this will affect your credit rating and so on but its all bluster, and you know they are already the £2.50 DVLA fee down on the deal before they start. They then go up to the actual debt collectors too - although its the same people on different headed paper, again to be ignored.
Ironically supermarket car parks are also where some of the EV charging points are. So if you park your EV to charge for 4 hours and they have a limit of 2 you will get an invoice for breaking their rules - Genius! During the Londong to Edinburgh by electric MINI stunt the BBC neglected to mention that when they parked in a Morrisons car park overnight in NE England.
Some 'naughty' people have been known to make up number plates of well know cars, for example Mr Cameron's official Jaguar or indeed the plate used by the owner of the supermarket or even cars used by the Royals on visits.
These naughty people have also been known to walk past the ANPR systems carrying these plates and hiding them as they walk out. The computer reads the plate, doesn't see it leave and assumes the car belonging to that plate has broken the rules and therefore issues an invoice...
In England people have been clamped for parking like this, but clamping is illegal in Scotland. And if you can remove the clamp without damaging it then there is nothing they can do. And if you do damage it, such as cutting the lock, they can only go after you for the damages - i.e. the cost of a new lock
A parking ticket from the police or a local council is a different ball game, but usually there is something wrong with the road markings or signage or something which makes it go away if you appeal long enough.
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