AT LEAST 100,000 drivers who have failed to pay parking fines face having their cars clamped or removed under plans for a national database which will trace them wherever they are in the country. Their vehicles will be targeted as soon as they are spotted, even if parked legally outside their homes. The database would include all drivers with three or more outstanding penalties for parking offences, driving in bus lanes, minor traffic infringements or failing to pay the congestion charge.
Across London alone, there are more than 50,000 drivers with three or more unpaid penalties. The figure nationally could easily be double that. Local authorities plan to pool information on unpaid tickets so that vehicles can be clamped anywhere in the country for offences that may have been committed many miles away.
Motoring groups gave warning last night that the database would result in thousands of innocent drivers having vehicles clamped because of flaws in records or after buying a vehicle with a history of offences.
Wardens will be able to check a car’s record on their handheld computers and summon a clamping van. Drivers will have to pay all the outstanding fines as well as release and storage fees in order to recover their vehicles. This could mean a bill of at least £500.
The national parking offenders database is being considered by a Department for Transport working group, which is preparing new guidelines for parking enforcement. Studies have found that serial parking offenders are more likely also to be committing other motoring offences, such as driving without insurance, a licence or a valid MoT certificate.
Keith Banbury, the chief executive of the British Parking Association and a member of the working group, said: “Drivers often throw their tickets away because they have failed to register or insure their cars and believe they cannot be traced.
“By creating a national offenders database, parking attendants all over the UK would be able to act quickly, to the benefit of the public.”
At present, local authorities must tackle each offence separately and cannot force a persistent offender to pay all outstanding penalties. Drivers can recover their cars by paying the fine for a single offence even if they have accumulated dozens of unpaid tickets.
The London Motorists’ Action Group is campaigning against overzealous parking enforcement. Tom Conti, the actor and LMAG co-founder, had to pay £1,600 after disputing four penalties, He said that authorities could not be trusted to use the database fairly.
Lord Lucas of Crudwell and Dingwall, the LMAG chairman, said: “It is incredibly disproportionate to seize a person’s vehicle when they may be legitimately disputing unfair penalties.”
