Westminster tracing top ten parking fine evaders

Now before you consider the points raised below just hold these thoughts:
- most members of the public believe that local authorities act within the law. Many have not, including Westminster who as recently as March last year were using tickets and paperwork which did not comply with the requirements of the 1991 Road Traffic Act.
- the DVLA data base 'claims' to be 97% accurate. Even taking this figure to becorrect, which it isn't (based on the number of vehicles changing hands / postal delays and effectively the whole database dependent on the goodwill of the public) still leaves 320,000 vehicles not correctly registered. Someone could have moved home and the post is being sent to a previous address.
- most local authorities signs, lines and Traffic Regulation Orders are flawed ... the degree varies from Council to Council.
- the registered keeper is the person responsible for paying any fines but may not be the owner and may not be the driver. The vehicle could belong to a guy whose son is a student and is racking up the tickets.

Now read the article and consider that the locall authorities who issued millions of illegal tickets have yet to repay any money...

24DASH.com
Publisher: Pam Caulfield
Published: 23/01/2007 - 09:26:12 AM

Westminster City Council is tracking down a top ten list of parking fine evaders who owe a total of £110,000.
Since the turn of the year Westminster’s parking team have caught and taken off the road the top offender who had accumulated 213 parking tickets.
In November and December alone, this vehicle racked up over 90 tickets, the equivalent of 1.5 parking fines every day.
Of those the council is still tracking down, the most wanted is a Volkswagen Black Polo registration W152 NAX who owes over £15,000. Since April, this vehicle has racked up over 150 parking tickets.
In total, the top ten hit list owe £110,000 in 1110 unpaid parking fines and their details have now been fed into the hand-held computers carried by Westminster's parking attendants.
Councillor Danny Chalkley, Westminster's Cabinet Member for Transportation and Economic Development, said,"These vehicles we are targeting are a hardcore group of evaders who simply refuse to pay despite being sent reminders."
"No one likes getting a parking ticket but most motorists play fair and either pay or appeal. Yet this tiny minority feel the rules do not apply to them."
"We will pursue these persistent evaders to recover the money owed to us because often these vehicles are not properly licensed or they are displaying fake or stolen disabled blue badges."
"For instance, the number two top parking evader who has now stopped picking up tickets, has previously leapt onto a moving parking removal truck to recover a disabled blue badge displayed in the window whilst leaving their previous vehicle to rot in the pound."
"We also know that half of the the top ten offenders are abusing the present disabled badge scheme."
The full top ten persistent are:
VRM PCNs Common Street CPZ Make Colour
1 L361HYP 209 Kendal Street[F4] F4 Nissan Serena Grey
2 W152NAX 151 Porchester Place [F4] F4 Volkswagen Polo Black
3 S877RLE 129 Crawford Street [F2] F2 Renault Laguna Black
4 KY04KHH 114 Porchester Place [F4] F4 Peugeot 307 Blue
5 BG52JMX 106 B5 Ford Transit White
6 HT52PMX 96 Maida Vale [C1] C Mercedes Benz A Class Green
7 P767RGN 93 Princes Mews [B3] B3 Volkswagen Polo Blue
8 LA04VRL 72 B3 Vauxhall Zafira Blue
9 H592ALG 70 Jermyn Street [E1] E1 Volkswagen Golf Blue
10 J87VVC 70 Whitcomb Street [G1] G1 Rover 200 range White Total 1110

Total Number of Persistent Evaders = 2,055 Approximate Value = £1,633,300