Westminster City Council has reactivated its network of parking and traffic enforcement cameras. Therefore it is imperative that you the self employed working Taxi-cab driver understands this, and secondly knows your right of appeal to any ticket issued to you whether by hand or CCTV.
If you believe you have reasonable cause to appeal a ticket then do so immediately.The minute you receive an unjust fine from any borough council or TFL appeal in writing quoting the ticket no. Keep original copies of all evidence you have gathered and if possible take photographic evidence of where you are parked (it seems a camera is an important tool that all Taxi-cab drivers need today) if this is possible.
You should receive a reply from the borough council/TFL informing you if the ticket was issued in error or by mistake or if you are to receive the Notice to Owner. Now if you rent a Taxi-cab your garage may have asked you to sign a contract which will allow the owner of a Taxi-cab to pass on liability to you as the driver. After a certain amount of time you'll receive Notice to Owner and then you can formally appeal the ticket from the borough or TFL. You normally have 28 days to respond to this notice, failing to do so may lead to further demands and enforcement action. If you respond in writing to said authority and they deny your appeal all is not lost you may appeal to the Parking Appeals service (details on right hand side of our blog). This information will be contained in the Notice of Rejection sent to you by said authority.You should note it costs nothing to appeal other than the price of a stamp and some of your time (appeal whilst you are sitting on a rank waiting for a job). The appeal can be heard in your absence by post and if you do lose you will be informed by post and given a set amount of days to pay the original fine. Who knows you may even win, for many authorities issue tickets incorrectly.Honestly would you allow a passenger or a passer by to mug you for £80.00 ?
My advice to all London Taxi-cab drivers is to appeal all tickets that you believe have been issued incorrectly or unfairly.
The example above shows what happens to an industry that hasn't had its eye on the ball for over a decade. We now find ourselves in a situation where we are getting fined for doing our job. Authorities across London allow us 2 mins to pick up and set down passengers and this may be ok in normal circumstances however when passengers have no money, are drunk or have problems with mobility we need a lot longer than two minutes and a more common sense approach by all who enforce Parking within Greater London. Delivery Vehicles in Greater London are given up to 20 mins to carry out their duties we within the London Taxi trade need a lot longer than two minutes. The RMT and its London Taxi branch will be campaigning to extend the time allowed for you to go about your business and we shall be asking those in authority where are those rest bays that they promised you nearly a year ago?
If you want to save your job and trade join the RMT specialist transport union.
