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AUTHOR Robert Gillespie
September 03, 2013

1.1 Million Motorists Chased Over Fines

The Bailiffs are back in town with a busy few weeks ahead of them, these bounty hunters have been set the ruthless task of hunting down the 1,132,776 motorists who haven’t paid their parking fines. The issue surrounding this however is parking tickets are attached to the car and not the person and when it comes for the bailiffs wanting money they don’t take no for an answer because that’s well what they are paid to do. The problem with them being attached to the car is people can sell, trade, scrap or do anything with their car and on top of that if you get a visit and you don’t believe you are due a fine you still have to pay a fair whack for the bailiff’s services.

On top of the foreseeable costs you can also have your credit rating heavily affected which is likely the scariest part. According to witnesses these Bailiffs have been let loose on the streets armed with number plate recognition cameras to spot any unpaid fines. The councils seemingly heavily influenced by money aren’t doing too much about it either, why would they? Last year councils pocketed £340 million from soaring penalty charges. Barrie Segal of AppealNow told the Telegraph a quite comical quote that sums the situation up “it’s a bit like the wild west, but there are no good guys out there to look after motorists”, he’s hit the nail on the head there.

Treating the fines like they are debts opens up a whole can of worms with debt chasers out of control at the thought of gaining a few extra quid, the total amount of money raised by councils on parking charges between the years of 2011-2012 was £1.3billion in which £565 million was pure profit, so is the fact this is happening really a surprise or should we have seen it coming? This year’s profit is set to be around the £635 million mark a significant increase on last years.

All the blame can’t be pointed away from motorists however as there is a large majority of people out there who are just avoiding paying fines and rightfully should be chased up for a Bailiff. On the other hand the people who are being incorrectly charged and chased should definitely have some kind of protection against this which is yet to be seen.

Having worked in the car rental industry for over 15 years, he really knows his stuff. Rob heads up our marketing department and as a keen traveller, always has a new location to talk about. Particularly if there is a golf course nearby.

Robert Gillespie

Traveller

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