At the ripe old age of 23 my memory might be going ;-) but I'm sure I've had a job of some sort for over 8 years....
How else could I afford the bike at 16 to not get parking tickets with?!
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If he gets a job during the school holidays that should help. If he can't get one ,a month's housework, cooking, ironing and doing the garden should be worth £60, to you if not to him!
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If you look at the Pepipoo website and type 'parking' into their search box, you will get all the legal aspects of parking tickets and what to do about them.
If it does have to be paid, then UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES pay it for him - you may need to pay it then reclaim the money from him. If you pay then your son will not see the importance of parking properly, after all it costs him nothing.
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A friend of ours daughter got her first speeding ticket rushing to meet her boyfriend 78mph in 70 zone. Her dad said she had to pay it herself and she did, but sent it back to her parents so they could stick it in her baby book of "firsts".
She is 20, her father is an airline pilot. Its nice to know she and her brother know the value of money even though her parents are wealthy.
They are a cool family, she is away at uni and before she went away from home her dad made her learn to change the oil in her car and be able to do basic maintenance and change her wheel and stuff, she happened to live with 3 boys and they are came to her for help with their cars!!
He also told her the state of TN requires two years on a ride on mower before she could apply for her licence!! A cheeky way to get his grass cut!!!!! I laughed alot at this!!!
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the state of TN requires >>
Woss TN?
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>> the state of TN requires >> Woss TN?
TN is Tennesse in America!!
Sorry- habit!
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Parking tickets are not means tested. He will have to pay up.
Quite, if you can afford to own and run any type of powered road vehicle, then you can afford the fines....
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It might be worth him writing to them, saying he's only 16 and hasn't any money. They can't sue him (yet).
The risk is that they'll wait, or your address gets a black mark against it.
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if he can't afford to run the moped, he needs to come off the road and re-join the people on the bus
if he can afford to run the moped, he needs to learn to budget and that would include taking responsibility for his own actions and his own fines
from my moped days at 16 my holiday jobs paid for the fuel and tax etc. A parking ticket would have been 100% mine, so unsurprisingly i didn't get any.
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or your address gets a black mark against it.
An address can't get a black mark, only the occupants.
Tell him to sell it to pay for his ticket. He has to learn responsibility sometime or other.
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Thank you everyone for the advice but am quite surprised at some of the high and mighty comments......I bought it him and am still paying for it as I work shifts and he plays a lot of rugby which I just couldn't get him too all the time so thought it would be a good idea to let him play train concentrate on school etc....I remember being young and making a few mistakes..yes you do learn the hard way and he will repay me thank you for the parenting helpful tips.
I would still as an adult be pretty cheesed off getting a £60.00 parking ticket on a private car park with a small notice designed to trap people
S
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ydm - Don't take the comments too harshly, I think people are giving impartial advice based on their opinions. The backroom is a friendly place and I think a lot of the people who visit here would be giving you the same advice - I would certainly add mine to the "pay it himself" chorus, but you've already decided that.
I think most of us agree that parking enforcement has got a bit silly in the past few years, but it's probably worth him learning the expensive lesson now rather than finding himself with your car clamped somewhere and some yob independent parking official demanding £300 to release your car!
PS - welcome!!
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"An address can't get a black mark, only the occupants"
May be true in theory but not so in practice!
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Again I say, check Pepipoo - a funny sounding web site but it really will give you all the legal info about parking rights - if this was a private piece of land, then I think they will confirm that you can ignore the ticket. They cannot 'fine' you, only recoup any losses they have made by your (your son, in this case) parking on their land. Check it, please.
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YDM. I am not sure that High and Mighty is quite the tone some of us have set! A lot of us are old enough to remember when nobody in their teens owned any sort of motorised transport at all, so we are perhaps a little envious! Also there is a perception today that some teenagers are drunken, knife carrying, hoodie wasters! Probably 0.0001% of them are and I am sure your son is not! I am guilty of this myself I am ashamed to say. I was doing a charity collection outside a supermarket on Friday and two quite rough looking teenagers put money in my tin on the way in and 20 minutes later one of them put more in on his way out! I repeat the advice about going to Pepipoo. Broadly they can only send a notice to the owner of the vehicle and that person is under no legal obligation to supply the name of the driver. Fight back and they will go away. Are you able to go and photograph the signage? It is often very small and not clearly visible. Good luck with your resistance!
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I guess the personal impact determines how much of an impact the ticket makes on him.
I paid for my pushbike with a paper round, and as soon as I was 16, I had a cleaning job for 2 hours a night - many of my peers did something similar - In my case that was how I funded my guitar and amp stack.
I don't remember the court giving me any leniency when I when through a red light - and I've not been stopped for going through one again since.
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a motor vehicle is a motor vehicle and its the use of the said vehicle that causes the problems regardless of however young, old, rich or poor the operator is.
as for the fine being obtained on private land thats a matter of courtesy after all you wouldnt want just any tom,dick or harry parking on your driveway just because its there would you.
personally if i would have to drive though a gate and park behind a fence and there is an abscence of a sign proclaiming it to be a Car park i always assume its not one, commonsense really
the legality of the situation according to the C.A.B is:
If you park on private land without permission (or stay longer than you paid for, for example, in a shop car park), you might get sent a notice telling you to pay a parking fine. This might look like an official fixed penalty but it isn't one. It's a notice that they intend to take you to court for trespassing, and will offer to let you pay some money to settle the case out of court. This isn't a criminal matter.
if i were you i would pay up the £60 and not risk the people being overly serious about taking your son to court which could find you paying alot more if they win
Edited by welshlad on 20/07/2008 at 08:15
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Good points WL. However, if the signage is not correctly displayed it is illegal and unenforceable. Worth going to the place and having a look. Somebody on the thread has used the word entrapment and this may be an example of it.
Edited by Armitage Shanks {p} on 20/07/2008 at 08:49
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i should have also said that having recieved a fixed penalty notice that has in fact negated any further defense of ignorance and if a person were to do the same thing having recieved such a notification the second offence is actually criminal trespass not civil, as the fixed penalty is not only a notification of a wish to settle out of court but also removes any doubt that the person is not in any way an authorized invitee.
im not saying anyone here would do it a second time but some people would regard a non legally binding fix penalty in a 'i'll park where i like and theres nothing they can do about' mindset
also the lack of signage only determines the feasibillity of the FPN and not the status of the land as private
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Quite honestly I don't think we're being "high and mighty", just saying that they lad has to take responsibility for his actions, something that seems to be sadly lacking in todays youth but something that was drummed into us older posters when we were kids.... nowadays it all seems to be about trying to blame someone else... though if it was not signed properly then its not his fault, is it?!
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Once again thank you for the advice...it is really helpful He has sent a letter to the firm in Birmingham offering a lower amount off his own back...We will see what the oucome is..after asking around this car park is a notorious ticket zone and the operators wait around. Pat has told me he was not in a car parking spot.
I hope that my original post did not imply thatwe sought to shirk responsability but was asking about the legality of the situation....most of us would query and not take them on face value due to numerous reports of bogus parking tickets. I am happy to pay on his behalf as we don't do debt in our family and as he spent last week chopping logs for me and helping his grandad take down branches that will save me easily £600.00 in central heating oil. Yes I know the moped could be seen as a luxury but buses aren't an option for us and an average day starts for him leaving home at 7.15am coming back at 5.30 and 3 training sessions /games a week after school plus gym sessions. I did it as a child and it was awful..with no mechinical transport and the anxiety of sneaking down the A road getting to the top of our lane before a car came.....oh the joy of living inthe town....what bliss gas central heating!!!!
S
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I think the legality of the situation is that probably the parking 'fine' your son received may not have any validity. Private companies cannot issue enforceable fines and if they model it on an official parking fine, then they themselves are acting illegally. Point Pat to Pepipoo before he goes any further - this homework will stand him in good stead!
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I am sure that deepwith is correct. If you carefully read the letter which has arrived I think you will find that it is a "Penalty Charge Notice". Fines are issued by courts and are legally enforceable - PCNs are not legally enforceable and whether you or your son pay or not is a matter for you, of course. Pepipoo has template letters for you to send to the people who are writing to you. Please visit the site before writing cheques or even corresponding with these people.
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