Barrie Segal of AppealNow.com reacts to parking fine ticket data obtained by swiftcover.com !

In response to some shocking figures published by car insurer swiftcover.com who have uncovered the fact that although the number of civil enforcement officers (what we used to call parking attendants) has fallen the number of parking tickets they issued has increased by almost 250,000 to 6.8 million in 2011, Barrie Segal, founder of www.AppealNow.com, an independent parking ticket advice service, said: " The figures from swiftcover.com are astonishing and in fact prove that councils accept that 10% of the parking tickets they issue are incorrect and yet they claim they're doing a good job. If a restaurant poisoned 10% of its customers it could hardly claim to be doing a good job.

"Not surprisingly the increase in parking tickets also increased the number of appeals that motorists lodged with local authorities. According to swiftcover.com almost 1.8 million appeals were lodged with local councils and Transport for London. Of these authorities accepted 39% of appeals which means that of the total number of parking tickets issued by authorities they accepted that just under 10% were issued incorrectly. Councils will say how great and fair they are and how efficient their parking enforcement is but the figures prove otherwise.

"Most interestingly the success rate in the appeals to councils varies dramatically from council to council - the City of Bradford Council cancels a mere 11% of  parking tickets appealed whilst Manchester Council cancels 36% and Chichester cancels 72%

"In my experience unfortunately many people who believe that they have received unfair parking tickets do not bother to appeal to the Council as they don't believe they can win against the financial clout and resources of the council.

Another important issue that only a tiny percentage of motorists appeal their tickets to the various Parking Adjudicators throughout the country. They tend to think that the proceedings are similar to a High Court with judges and barristers with wigs. Nothing can be further from the truth. Although in law they are tribunals, the proceedings are very informal and if you choose not to attend, the appeal can be heard by a Parking Adjudicator in your absence based solely on the written evidence the motorist produces.

I believe that many more parking ticket appeals should be made to Parking Adjudicators. Even when parking tickets have demonstrably been issued unfairly there is a tremendous reluctance on the part of motorists to take an appeal all the way to the Adjudicator. I hope that motorists will overcome this reluctance because if parking enforcement is to become fairer and more transparent then appeals to the Parking Adjudicator, who should hold councils to account, will help to achieve this goal.

Thanks to Swidtcover.com for taking the initiative on this.  I am delighted to say that I assisted with the figures.