2008-07-03 09:42:15 - Personallyyours.co.uk who is registered with the DVLA has been in the personalised number plate industry for twenty years. They provide private number plates, rare number plates, attend number plate auctions and buy cherished number plates.

Cars with foreign number plates get away with parking fines

Using the Freedom of Information act, it has been found that cars sporting a foreign number plate can get away with parking fines. This is because despite having the latest number plate technology and access to the DVLA data base foreign number plates just cannot be traced.

In one particular region, Lancashire,

it has been noted that there is around a £130,000 still outstanding where a vehicle with foreign number plates has been fined for parking illegally since 2004. It works out at about 2,250 parking tickets, which have just had to be cancelled.

Parking campaigner Neil Herron said: 'There is no way to trace the vehicle's owner.

'If you issue a ticket to a foreign-registered vehicle you might as well throw it in the bin, because it will have to be written off.

'They issue the ticket in the remote possibility that it will be paid.

"If it is not paid they need to send a notice to the owner - but that must be the person on the DVLA database.'

Mr Herron added: 'If they are inefficient working with the DVLA think how inefficient they will be with foreign authorities.

'It may well be that the best thing for them to do would be to ignore foreign drivers for administrative purposes.'

This could be a serious problem with more people coming over from other parts of the EU, as they know that they can park just about anywhere and at any time knowing full well that should they get a ticket there is nothing that the parking enforcement people can do about it.

A Parkwise spokesman said: 'Foreign vehicles which are issued with a penalty charge notice are treated in the same way as UK registered vehicles.

'Civil enforcement officers are required to issue a PCN to any vehicle parked in contravention regardless of where they are from.

'Parkwise also follow the same statutory process and will enter into correspondence at foreign addresses when required.'

There is also the possibility that a UK resident could buy a car with foreign number plates and also be able to get away with parking anywhere they want to.

Source [Lancashire Telegraph]



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