What does Parking actually mean?

It is a serious question after the latest / first parking fine dropped on the mat. The wife had to go for an eyetest which involved drops and bright lights and as the pubs were closed I offered to drive. I dropped her off in a free for two hours supermarket car park and found a parking place. It took her 1 hr and 15 minutes in which she grabbed a bit of shopping from the supermarket too.

Move on a month or so and this “bill” dropped on the mat for either, overstaying the period or failure to validate parking. So far the only notice I have seen is [ 2hrs free parking for customers. ] (Conditions Apply)

Apparently as you enter the shop, there are parking payment meters and validation machines. I have never entered that shop either from street level or the underground car park.

I have appealed on the strength of I was parked safely, remained in the vehicle and we left well within the 2 hour free parking limits. Parking, means;

bring (a vehicle that one is driving) to a halt and leave it temporarily, typically in a car park or by the side of the road.

Fortunately their is a legal definition of parking in the book Words and Phrases legally defined. The book contains statutory and judicial definitions of words and phrases. The definitions are taken from Acts of Parliament, Halsbury’s Laws of England, leading textbooks and verbatim judgments from across the Commonwealth. As such its definition of parking should be influential in parking cases.

It’s definition of parking comes from Lord Greene’s judgment Ashby v Tolhurst (1937). He held:

You take a car park ticket in order to obtain permission to park your car at a particular place, and parking your car means, I should have thought, leaving your car in the place. If you park your car in the street you are liable to get into trouble with the police. On the other hand, you are entitled to park your car in places indicated by the police or the appropriate authorities for the purpose. Parking a car is leaving a car and, I should have thought, nothing else.
Words and Phrases legally defined” Fifth edition (2018)

The key part of that definition is that parking is that you must leave the car. This means most of the scenarios cited above are not parking by definition.

If your case is not legally defined as parking, this should be used in your defence to your case.

What do the TNUK Barrack Room Barristers suggest.

Wheel Nut:
It is a serious question after the latest / first parking fine dropped on the mat. The wife had to go for an eyetest which involved drops and bright lights and as the pubs were closed I offered to drive. I dropped her off in a free for two hours supermarket car park and found a parking place. It took her 1 hr and 15 minutes in which she grabbed a bit of shopping from the supermarket too.

Move on a month or so and this “bill” dropped on the mat for either, overstaying the period or failure to validate parking. So far the only notice I have seen is [ 2hrs free parking for customers. ] (Conditions Apply)

Apparently as you enter the shop, there are parking payment meters and validation machines. I have never entered that shop either from street level or the underground car park.

I have appealed on the strength of I was parked safely, remained in the vehicle and we left well within the 2 hour free parking limits. Parking, means;

bring (a vehicle that one is driving) to a halt and leave it temporarily, typically in a car park or by the side of the road.

Fortunately their is a legal definition of parking in the book Words and Phrases legally defined. The book contains statutory and judicial definitions of words and phrases. The definitions are taken from Acts of Parliament, Halsbury’s Laws of England, leading textbooks and verbatim judgments from across the Commonwealth. As such its definition of parking should be influential in parking cases.

It’s definition of parking comes from Lord Greene’s judgment Ashby v Tolhurst (1937). He held:

You take a car park ticket in order to obtain permission to park your car at a particular place, and parking your car means, I should have thought, leaving your car in the place. If you park your car in the street you are liable to get into trouble with the police. On the other hand, you are entitled to park your car in places indicated by the police or the appropriate authorities for the purpose. Parking a car is leaving a car and, I should have thought, nothing else.
Words and Phrases legally defined” Fifth edition (2018)

The key part of that definition is that parking is that you must leave the car. This means most of the scenarios cited above are not parking by definition.

If your case is not legally defined as parking, this should be used in your defence to your case.

What do the TNUK Barrack Room Barristers suggest.

Well, I`ve been called to the Bar…normally the Public but occasionally the Lounge Bar.
“Conditions Apply” is probably the interesting bit here: What are the Conditions?
Probably they involve you entering the shop to validate said ticket? Are these conditions available for you to read? Is it reasonable for you to obey conditions that are not available to be read and followed?
Do any signs say that this car park is owned by this shop? If so maybe it is reasonable to assume you will be entering this shop to read any conditions displayed there?

All the above are musings, not advice of course.

Franglais:

Wheel Nut:
It is a serious question after the latest / first parking fine dropped on the mat. The wife had to go for an eyetest which involved drops and bright lights and as the pubs were closed I offered to drive. I dropped her off in a free for two hours supermarket car park and found a parking place. It took her 1 hr and 15 minutes in which she grabbed a bit of shopping from the supermarket too.

Move on a month or so and this “bill” dropped on the mat for either, overstaying the period or failure to validate parking. So far the only notice I have seen is [ 2hrs free parking for customers. ] (Conditions Apply)

Apparently as you enter the shop, there are parking payment meters and validation machines. I have never entered that shop either from street level or the underground car park.

I have appealed on the strength of I was parked safely, remained in the vehicle and we left well within the 2 hour free parking limits. Parking, means;

bring (a vehicle that one is driving) to a halt and leave it temporarily, typically in a car park or by the side of the road.

Fortunately their is a legal definition of parking in the book Words and Phrases legally defined. The book contains statutory and judicial definitions of words and phrases. The definitions are taken from Acts of Parliament, Halsbury’s Laws of England, leading textbooks and verbatim judgments from across the Commonwealth. As such its definition of parking should be influential in parking cases.

It’s definition of parking comes from Lord Greene’s judgment Ashby v Tolhurst (1937). He held:

You take a car park ticket in order to obtain permission to park your car at a particular place, and parking your car means, I should have thought, leaving your car in the place. If you park your car in the street you are liable to get into trouble with the police. On the other hand, you are entitled to park your car in places indicated by the police or the appropriate authorities for the purpose. Parking a car is leaving a car and, I should have thought, nothing else.
Words and Phrases legally defined” Fifth edition (2018)

The key part of that definition is that parking is that you must leave the car. This means most of the scenarios cited above are not parking by definition.

If your case is not legally defined as parking, this should be used in your defence to your case.

What do the TNUK Barrack Room Barristers suggest.

Well, I`ve been called to the Bar…normally the Public but occasionally the Lounge Bar.
“Conditions Apply” is probably the interesting bit here: What are the Conditions?
Probably they involve you entering the shop to validate said ticket? Are these conditions available for you to read? Is it reasonable for you to obey conditions that are not available to be read and followed?
Do any signs say that this car park is owned by this shop? If so maybe it is reasonable to assume you will be entering this shop to read any conditions displayed there?

All the above are musings, not advice of course.

Note I am in no way qualified to give legal advice, but have had a few legal wranglings during my life! (So far, so good…).

I agree the “conditions apply” note is probably crucial.

If the conditions are not readily available to you in the car park I would agree it is unreasonable to apply them. Particularly if you must enter the shop to read them (thus, in effect, obliging you to have already parked in ignorance of their content) in which case I cannot see how any reasonable person would expect you to adhere to them as you were in ignorance of their content when you parked. In which case I would not thank any court would support their application.

But of course the conditions that apply may simply be that no liability for theft, damage or whatever is excepted.

Out of interest how much is the “bill” for and is it issued by a contractor working for the shop? If so is that fact mentioned on any notice in the carpark?

They either enforce it with camera recognition or by ticket and a barrier.
If you forget to validate the ticket etc the only realistic option either way is to appeal on grounds of not knowing about the need for validation before exit and providing proof of purchase date and time.They’ll usually accept it especially in the case of having to clear a closed blocked barrier.

If the car park has a simple sign saying “Blog’s Shop Car Park” then surely it is reasonable to expect you to enter “Blog’s Shop”?

Franglais:
If the car park has a simple sign saying “Blog’s Shop Car Park” then surely it is reasonable to expect you to enter “Blog’s Shop”?

She did enter as a passenger. I didn’t as the vehicle driver.

The bill was £70 reduced to £30 if paid in 14 days I think.

The company is Apcoa / Tesco

Wheel Nut:

Franglais:
If the car park has a simple sign saying “Blog’s Shop Car Park” then surely it is reasonable to expect you to enter “Blog’s Shop”?

She did enter as a passenger. I didn’t as the vehicle driver.

The bill was £70 reduced to £30 if paid in 14 days I think.

The company is Apcoa / Tesco

If there is a sign saying “Tesco CarPark” or similar then surely you are entering on their terms and conditions?

So, Mrs. Nut has a timed till receipt and in effect you ’ forgot ’ to validate the parking ticket.

Don’t you just write and send a copy of the two tickets ? Surely Tesco wouldn’t want a 'loyal customer ’ being punished ?

I would write to the parking company and go into the store and talk to the manager.

OwenMoney:
So, Mrs. Nut has a timed till receipt and in effect you ’ forgot ’ to validate the parking ticket.

Don’t you just write and send a copy of the two tickets ? Surely Tesco wouldn’t want a 'loyal customer ’ being punished ?

I would write to the parking company and go into the store and talk to the manager.

Mrs Nut may have a timed till receipt, but she can’t find a bag of frozen peas in the freezer so trying to get access to her handbag is more than life is worth[emoji14]

I promise to have and to hold, for better or worse, in sickness and health but never ever go in my handbag! [emoji23]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Wheel Nut:
Mrs Nut may have a timed till receipt, but she can’t find a bag of frozen peas in the freezer so trying to get access to her handbag is more than life is worth[emoji14]

I promise to have and to hold, for better or worse, in sickness and health but never ever go in my handbag! [emoji23]

Either she stands and delivers the contents of the bag in the form of proof of purchase to Tesco parking enforcement or she has to pay the fine seems fair.

This is very similar to an entrapment operation run by a private car parking firm where I live, basically the signs displayed are confusing but when you arrive to park for free for so many hours , you are supposed to get a ticket out of the machine and display it and the car park also had cameras to read the number plates .
Furious drivers wrote to the local paper to say how they were receiving invoices for not paying to park or didn’t get the tickets out of the machine, the company backed down and modified their legal wording on the display signs .

UPDATE

The parking gods have relented and cancelled my penalty invoice, so I have kept a copy of the letters for future reference.

I am going to go in as a customer and try to find these elusive signs they said I drove past.

Wheel Nut:
UPDATE

The parking gods have relented and cancelled my penalty invoice, so I have kept a copy of the letters for future reference.

I am going to go in as a customer and try to find these elusive signs they said I drove past.

You are teasing us! How did this come about? Please share the story with us.

Wheel Nut:
UPDATE

The parking gods have relented and cancelled my penalty invoice, so I have kept a copy of the letters for future reference.

I am going to go in as a customer and try to find these elusive signs they said I drove past.

Catching the bus there?