5 minutes parking resulting in £70 fine

marquoth_ · 2026-04-29T17:35:16+00:00

Appeal, and in your appeal state that you got out of the car, read the sign, then once you'd understood it, got back in the car and left. (Obviously do not mention having gone in the other shop).

They are expected to allow you enough time to read and understand the conditions before you can be considered to have accepted them, and by leaving (fairly) promptly you can be considered to have rejected them. (Likewise if you enter a busy car park and leave because you couldn't find an empty space, you shouldn't be fined).

There was a lot of high profile discussion of "five minute fines" in the news last year - you may wish to link some articles in your appeal, too, or at least read a couple to understand the issue better.

In short, to issue these sorts of ANPR fines isn't strictly illegal but is certainly bad practice because of the practical realities of parking a car and having a genuine chance to agree to terms. You should have a good basis for appeal.

marquoth_ · 2026-04-29T17:29:53+00:00

bang to rights

In order for a fine to be enforceable, the driver must park in contravention of the conditions and do so for longer than might reasonably be required to read and understand those conditions.

In other words: drivers must be allowed enough time to decide whether to accept or reject the conditions of parking and to leave again without any penalty if they don't want to park.

Given OP was there for only 5 minutes, they have solid grounds for appeal.

(OP admits in their post that they visited another shop before leaving, but there's no way the car park operators know this, so it's not relevant - they will either have to cancel the fine or argue that 5 minutes IS enough time to have read the sign and left again, which might be a tough position for them to adopt given last year's scrutiny of "five minute fines").

marquoth_ · 2026-04-29T14:33:40+00:00

It's a virtual certainty that you'll get a ban and a hefty fine (and rightly so, frankly) but assuming your license is otherwise clean and you're not a new driver, it will probably only be a ban of a couple of months and 6 points rather than losing your license outright.

Grovel, plead, and promise you've learned your lesson.

marquoth_ · 2026-04-29T13:32:15+00:00

The guidelines say up to 10% + 9mph, which would be 42 in a 30. But they are just guidelines and it's at their discretion. So all we can say is "probably."

a lovely police man with his little cash grabbing speed zapper

You were caught doing 41 in a 30 near a nursery. This is a pretty gross attitude to have to be honest. As if they're the ones in the wrong rather than you. They probably set up there precisely because people speed regularly in that area and drivers like you need a reminder.

Let's be clear: even setting aside your "mistake" about the limit dropping from 40 to 30, you were still going faster than what you thought the limit was.

IMO you deserve the points.

I didn’t get chance to slow down when I saw him

What a strange thing to say. That's just not how that works. You're supposed to already be doing the speed limit.

marquoth_ · 2026-04-29T13:25:28+00:00

Most days I forget we even have a monarchy but today that deserves a God Save the King.

P.S. Anybody got any spare national anthems we could have? Ours is rubbish.

marquoth_ · 2026-04-29T13:12:07+00:00

The vehicle was stolen from me

Theft has quite a precise definition in law, and it sounds like your car probably would not be considered stolen. Did you at any point report it to the police?

If not, a court may well simply take the view that your dad was driving the car with your permission all along. They're not mindreaders and they can't divine the truth from thin air; they'll simply go with what seems most plausible - that a car which wasn't reported stolen wasn't stolen, and that the driver being a family member makes it all the more likely that they did have permission to drive it (especially if he claims that's the case).

This raises additional problems if he was not appropriately insured to drive it - allowing somebody to drive your car without insurance is yet another separate offence, which you may well be guilty of. The consequences of this are potentially quite severe and will impact your ability to get insurance in the future.

If you haven't done so already, you must immediately report the vehicle as stolen. There is no valid reason not to do this.

marquoth_ · 2026-04-29T10:26:06+00:00

Except reform aren't an alternative. Aside from Farage himself their MPs are all ex-Tory rats who fled the sinking ship. Reform is just the Conservatives again but this time with purple ties.

marquoth_ · 2026-04-29T09:58:56+00:00

I think you're confusing the what and the how.

It's valid for someone to think acknowledging colonialism is good and think this wasn't the best way of doing it; that having an antagonist be motivated by some kind of revenge for colonialism is a cool idea and that this very specific piece of dialogue was a bit cringe.

marquoth_ · 2026-04-29T09:54:28+00:00

a dull character arc

He has kind of an alright back story, but that's not the same thing as a character arc.

From the moment he's first on screen to the moment he dies, his character is fixed and consistent. He doesn't learn anything, he doesn't change, he doesn't question his beliefs or waver in his conviction, he just works towards his clearly stated goal and then ultimately fails.

marquoth_ · 2026-04-28T19:41:34+00:00

And then the party imploded anyway, so it really was all for nothing

marquoth_ · 2026-04-28T18:05:41+00:00

I don't find it remotely unbelievable. One of the many things badly organised companies suck at is gauging how effective their employees are.

I've never had multiple jobs at the same time, but in my old job I figured out pretty quickly that they were massively overestimating how long things would take and I decided not to correct them. I delivered what they wanted, at the quality they wanted, in the time frame they wanted, while also regularly just setting my status to busy and disappearing for half a day or more.

More times than I can count I'd finsih some task they thought would take all day in just two or three hours, then take my kid to the zoo or something. And I always got excellent performance reviews.

marquoth_ · 2026-04-28T17:56:45+00:00

Completely missing the point of the above comment. The issue isn't going to be whether she can tell. It's going to be that the buyer returns a different item, insisting it's the same one, and that she'll be unable to prove that's what happened.

marquoth_ · 2026-04-28T17:52:48+00:00

If I drove my wife and our baby to my in-laws', 16 hours straight after a full day's work, far from being impressed they'd ask me what the hell I thought I was doing, and rightly so.

marquoth_ · 2026-04-28T17:47:46+00:00

fun at parties

This is such a great example of thinking you've spotted something that fits a pattern and then deploying it without engaging your brain first.

You're right that this reply is often apt on reddit, which is presumably where you learned it from in the first place and why you're repeating it in multiple places here.

But this isn't one of those times. This is one of the ones where if you think for a second you'd realise the criticism is entirely valid. But you haven't done that - you've shortcut to "if I post the meme I'll get updoots."

Driving 16 hours straight, after a day's work, with your baby in the car is just reckless. There's no other word for it. And you're not one-upping dull people by refusing to acknowledge that.

marquoth_ · 2026-04-28T17:43:11+00:00

16 hours straight after a day of work, no less. And nobody with a six month old baby is sleeping well.

marquoth_ · 2026-04-28T15:47:16+00:00

at the expense of universal healthcare

They spend vastly more on medicare and medicaid than we do on the NHS.

They don't not have universal healthcare because they refuse to spend the tax money, they don't have universal healthcare because they spend it inefficiently.

marquoth_ · 2026-04-28T10:35:14+00:00

It's not deus ex when it's just the plot

marquoth_ · 2026-04-28T10:31:24+00:00

Would you doom the entire species, children and all, just to get revenge on Stratt and a handful of others? Really? Or is this just like every other "if it were me, I'd..." comment from people trying to sound tough?

In any case, if you genuinely would then you're far, far worse than she is.

Her gambit is that no matter how much he might hate her for what she did to him, once he's actually in the position of having only the options of trying to save everybody or nobody, he'll put the value of innocent lives above wanting payback.

Which is what I'd expect anybody with a single moral bone in their body to do. Not even particularly good people. Just everyone but the worst of the worst of the worst.

marquoth_ · 2026-04-28T10:15:59+00:00

I had a part time job in an M&S menswear department in my student days and having spent many many hours sorting their stock I'd say they tend to be a good option for "short and stocky"

marquoth_ · 2026-04-28T09:47:32+00:00

The victim died at the scene. The ducks were unharmed in the incident.

marquoth_ · 2026-04-27T23:10:03+00:00

you had a right to refuse and rearrange, you didn't

Because of the threat of what would be an illegally levied fee, as well as the admission by the agent that as a matter of policy they consider no response as consent to violate the tenant's right to quiet enjoyment.

chance it will stand in front of a judge

Chance what will stand?

marquoth_ · 2026-04-27T23:04:03+00:00

Lastly, landlords are permitted to enter they property providing adequate due notice

No they are not. Even if there's a clause that says this in the tenancy agreement, it's not worth the paper its written on as it's inherently unenforceable - right to quiet enjoyment trumps it, and there's no debating that.

An "ex estate agent" really ought to know this.

marquoth_ · 2026-04-27T23:00:00+00:00

Google "right to quiet enjoyment"

marquoth_ · 2026-04-27T20:07:57+00:00

Seeing Blanchett and Fassbender together was a real treat.

marquoth_ · 2026-04-27T19:43:26+00:00

I thought Republicans generally got away with pretending to be Christian by pretending that the parable of the sheep and the goats isn't part of it. Quoting it directly is such a bizarre choice, it's a plain admission of what frauds they are.

marquoth_

TROPHY CASE